


No One Can Say I Never Tried

by KDblack



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: "magic is bullshit and so is reincarnation" says the reincarnated sorcerer, Gen, Kaiba Mokuba has issues, Kaiba Seto Has Issues, Kaiba Seto needs a hug but just try and give him one, Kaiba's on the warpath everyone run, M/M, Reincarnation, Self-Insert, caution: i am not an egyptologist, no beta we die like men, of a sort, unless your name is Mokuba you're going to lose that arm, vague mishmash of continuities because I took all the fun bits for reasons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23102647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: Seto Kaiba wakes up from a six month coma to find his company in shambles, his brother a nervous wreck, and his thoughts plagued by memories not his own. Whatever illicit substance Yugi Mutou slipped him continued its effects while he was unconscious, creating a false life and a false identity for an anonymous,femaleuniversity student from the year 2020. As if that weren't enough, it also gave rise to a warped, cartoonish version of his own life.It's ridiculous. Easily dismissed. But as things begin to go off the rails in an uncomfortably familiar pattern, Seto finds himself faced with a choice: deny everything and rebel against the path laid out for him, or swallow his pride for Mokuba's sake and follow it to the bitter end?Ha. What a joke. The real question here is, who honestly thought backing Seto Kaiba into a corner was a good idea?(Quasi-SI fic in which magic still isn't real, but that won't stop Seto from declaring war on it, fate, and the concept of spending his life as number two. The Nameless Pharaoh had better be shaking in his leather boots.)
Relationships: Blue-Eyes White Dragon & Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Mokuba & Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Seto & Yami Yuugi, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 140
Kudos: 183





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Did I just start a new SI fic 4 chapters into my first one?**  
>  Yes.
> 
>  **Should I have?**  
>  Probably not.
> 
>  **Can anyone stop me?**  
>  Lol nope.
> 
> We're going with Japanese names but English name order because typing 'Kaiba Seto' makes me feel physically ill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto has odd dreams.

The mind was a dark, dark thing. How long I'd been here, I couldn't tell. All that existed was the puzzle sprawled out before me. Threads of gold. Spools of silver. A patchwork quilt of scars. The shreds of a person, untangled and left in heaps at my feet.

We had been here, together, forever. Before the puzzle, I was nothing. After all, the puzzle was all that was left of me.

Challenging Yugi Mutou. Stealing his Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Being trapped in a nightmare.

Challenging Yugi Mutou again. Seizing three other Blue-Eyes for myself. Throwing all KaibaCorp's operations to a halt and organizing Death-T just to prove my victory over a boy who probably didn't remember my name.

Losing Death-T. Being trapped in another nightmare. His words were still echoing in my head.

_“Penalty game! Mind Crush!”_

Anyway, the puzzle. At the beginning, I just looked at them, these fragile shards of selfhood that were too delicate to touch. Shining hopes. Bitter truths. Cold comforts. The wishes of a little boy who'd been so soft, so kind, that he had to kill himself at his own hands just to survive.

Touch the pieces? Ha. The second my fingers made contact with them, the last scraps of anything worthwhile in me would disappear. I sat there in the darkness instead, gazing on the rubble, wishing I was too thoroughly shattered to find this ironic.

Defeat is the same as death.

I am Seto Kaiba, champion of champions. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

Finally, I could stand to look at the puzzle no longer. I closed my eyes with the finality of an undertaker sliding down the lids of a corpse. When I closed my eyes, I ceased to be. Someone else swam up through the cracks and took my place.

Small hands. A high, piping voice. The small stature and quick movements of a child.

_“What's this? Yu-Gi-Oh!? Looks interesting.”_

Older now. Bitten nails. Curves in the wrong places. A broad, unfamiliar smile pulling at lips which were much too soft.

_“Oh my god, I love this manga so much, you guys.”_

Sitting on a couch, knees tucked up to a chest that squished uncomfortably, eyes glued to the screen in front of me. A screen on which I, or a version of me, stood glaring out toward myself.

_“The anime is good too! But they made a bunch of changes. Some of them were good, others... not so much. The dub is hilarious, at least. It's really hard to get used to the name changes, though.”_

Image after image of cartoon caricatures. Myself. Pegasus J. Crawford. Yugi Mutou. Yugi Mutou's idiot friends. More people I vaguely recognized, and some I didn't recognize at all. And then, tucked in at the very end, Mokuba.

_“My favourite character is definitely Yami! No, wait, but Ryou is adorable. And Bakura is best villain, hands down. But Yugi's character arc is nice... ah, it's so hard to choose! Even Kaiba has a solid story line going for him. Wish he got more closure with --- though.”_

Older now, walking outside, gesturing wildly with my hands. My nails were painted. My shadow did not belong to me.

_“Kaiba's design is so striking. I love his trenchcoats. Definitely the best dressed character in the whole series.”_

More smiles. Laughter. Companionship.

_“Has Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged updated? New episode! Yes!”_

_“Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who actually liked GX. I mean, not everything, of course, but the core idea was solid. I wish I knew more about season 4... and that they didn't just throw Kaiba in as a cameo. Chazz does a pretty good job of being the new rich rival, though.”_

_“5Ds was a good series! Just not a good Yu-Gi-Oh! series. I wish they'd published it separately as a cyberpunk show without the card games. Also that Jack and Yusei's rivalry stayed, you know, important. I guess not every Yu-Gi-Oh! rival can be Kaiba, though.”_

_“...I'm not even going to try and watch Zexal. The colours are nice, though.”_

Older still. Adolescent gawkiness had smoothed out into the solid certainty of young adulthood. Slim fingers stroking over a bookshelf filled with manga and VHS tapes. Yugi Mutou's smug, red-eyed face staring out at me.

_“I can't believe it's been ten years. I mean, I'm not going to watch the movie, but still. Wow. Quite the anniversary, huh?”_

A sense of bittersweet nostalgia. 

_“You guys have been here with me for a long time. It's hard to believe I'm an adult now... older than most of you. You showed me magic and terror at a time when I really needed it. So, even though I know you won't hear this, thank you.”_

I opened my eyes with a shout. Everything I had just seen vanished like the illusion it was. I was kneeling in the void around the puzzle, because of course I was. Where did I expect to be? Nothing had changed. I was still a failure. Still in pieces. Still far away from my little brother.

That last thought jarred me free of the delusion. Little brother? How long had it been since I thought of him that way? The two of us hadn't really been family in years. At most, he was my shadow. At worst, he was an irritant. 

_(“Until you trash those stupid feelings of brotherly love, you'll always be a loser!”)_

For some reason, a flare of bitterness erupted in my chest. 

I felt - 

I felt?

I hadn't allowed myself to feel things for so long. Now, suddenly, I was nothing but feelings. If they'd been leftovers from the vision I'd just been subjected to – some confusing mess of sensations and a fictionalized, fantastical future for myself – I'd understand, but these didn't belong to whoever my brain had briefly tried convincing myself I was. They were, unquestionably my own. Seto Kaiba's.

Or rather, Seto–

Never mind. That name was dead, and the boy it had belonged to with it. Even knowing that, I couldn't stop myself. I reached out and picked up the first puzzle piece delicately between thumb and forefinger. It was a sliver of memory, gleaming like starlight. Sweet and unfamiliar. One I must've lost somewhere along the way.

_“Don't cry, Mokuba.”_

_“I'll make sure that, someday, we have a good life.”_

_“-have a good life.”_

_“-have a good life.”_

_“-have a good life.”_

_“-hAVE a GOoD liFE.”_

My hands were shaking. Something hot and damp ran down my face. I stared into the gleaming shard, seeing nothing but my little brother's tear-stained face.

_(“Those pathetic, clingy eyes... like a dog's. I've felt them on my back for years.”)_

Everything I had done – it was for him. The pain. The trials. The slow demise of every positive feeling I had. And I'd left him to die.

_(“I've always told you... play with fire, and you'll get burned.”)_

How could I – 

_(“Remember, Mokuba? Only the winner can leave that box!”)_

– have killed the only thing that mattered?

No.

I caught myself before I could crush the memory in my panic. Mokuba had to be alive. He was my little brother, after all. So what if he'd never been quite as sharp as me? That was still far brighter than a child had any right to be. 

I set the piece aside with a tenderness I hadn't known I possessed. Then I returned to the pile and began to systematically pick my way through it. Who I had been, what I had done – none of that mattered. Mokuba was out there somewhere. I couldn't leave him waiting any longer.

Or rather, I refused to.

* * *

“Doctor---how is he?”

“---condition appears to be stable, Mr. Kaiba, but only time will tell.”

“I don't---platitudes. Just---when he's going to wake up.”

“I can't---any answers, Mr. Kaiba. He may stay like this---rest of his life.”

“No, he won't! You can---right, Seto?! Wake up!”

“Mr. Kaiba, calm down-”

“...sorry---lost control of myself.”

“---understandable, given the situation. But please---things in perspective. Your brother is still alive. He could yet---full recovery.”

“He will. I know he will.”

* * *

The puzzle was beginning to take shape. A statue, shining in the dark. Quartz body, silver eyes, gold tongue roaring toward the heavens. Something about those colours rubbed me the wrong way, but now wasn't the time to make a fuss. With each piece that clicked into place, I could feel my mind repairing itself. It was already much, much easier to maintain a train of thought than it had been. With each passing second, I was pulling myself out of the sucking darkness.

Downside: being able to think coherently meant I had to start actually processing the constant stream of hallucinations my brain was feeding me. I mean, the whole thing was a hallucination, obviously – no one actually finds themselves stuck in an endless void until they put their own shattered soul back together – but these hallucinations were the worst. Unlike the puzzle, which was clearly a helpful representation of my fractured subconscious, they were randomized.

Wait, no, that's the wrong word. Stupid. They were stupid. On what earth would I need to know exactly how much 'that time of the month' sucked, and then experience it every month for a decade? My subconscious was a goddamn idiot. Thank god it had decided to kill off my alter ego at the age of twenty-five, or I might've had to figure out how to kill a figment of my imagination just to escape.

All right, murder might be an overreaction. In my defence, I had been overreacting for a very long time, and no one had stopped me. No one had been able to stop me. Which was how I had ended up in this mess to begin with.

Point was, she seemed like a nice enough girl, this false persona my brain had constructed. Creative. Passionate. A bit too sensitive for her own good, but then, everyone's too sensitive in my opinion. And she liked me, or at least she liked my cartoon iteration, which confirmed she had either good taste or unsalvageably awful taste. Hard to say which.

But that brought up the cartoon issue. I had been very studiously ignoring the cartoon issue, to the point of dropping any puzzle piece which showed visions of that – anime – to the side in their own little 'to be ignored' pile. Eventually, I ran out of pieces which would slide neatly into place. It was inevitable. That didn't stop me from trying to glare the half-finished puzzle into surrender.

No luck. It figured. This was a representation of myself, after all, and I bowed my head to no one. So when I gritted my teeth and gingerly lifted the first piece, it wasn't a submission – just pragmatism.

I regretted it the second the shard touched my skin. Sharing my thoughts with a dead girl had been bad enough. Now I was getting her opinions on a bastardized version of my life. Egyptian gods? A journey to the past? Magical ghosts possessing random Japanese teenagers because prophecy? Spare me.

...if there was one thing I could admit to myself, here in this darkness, it was that I was glad to see Mokuba, even if he was just a drawing. There he was, with his wild hair, bad fashion sense, huge eyes, and devious grin. Even in the very depths of my heart, he existed, carved into the very foundation of who Seto Kaiba was. Once upon a time, that carving kept me alive. I'd built up so much scar tissue over the years that I lost sight of anything but the pain.

Never again. If I woke up – 

_When_ I woke up - 

Things would be different. I would be different. This, I knew with the bone-deep certainty I had once felt when I promised him a better life. 

But I'd done a poor job of following through on that promise, hadn't I? 

Forget it. I slotted the piece into place and reached determinedly for the next. Drawings, this time, rather than cartoons. Still me. Still Mokuba. Still Yugi Mutou. I let the outlandish scribbles sweep through me without resistance. At least I had something entertaining to go over while I put myself back together.

* * *

“How is he? Any change?”

“---slight shift in brain waves, but---may not signify anything. He could remain---indefinitely.”

“I see. He looks well, at least.”

“He does, doesn't he? KaibaCorp's made some generous donations---should remain healthy for at least---years.”

“...do you expect it to take that long for him to wake up?”

“Honestly? We have no answers right now---having trouble even diagnosing the cause of the coma. And after six months, I'm afraid he has---low odds of being able to live independently.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Enjoy the rest of your visit, Mr. Mutou.”

“I hope you finish the puzzle soon, Kaiba. Even lost within yourself, you were a strong opponent. I look forward to meeting you properly.”

* * *

The story of my life had three manga, two anime adaptations, four movies, countless video games, and an ever-increasing number of spin-offs. This hideous invasion of privacy had also given rise to a thriving Duel Monsters community in a world where Pegasus J. Crawford had never been born, and for that alone I would forgive it. It was still a stupid, childish story focusing on a stupid, childish boy learning to be slightly less stupid and childish, even as he trampled all over my pride, but I could accept that much. It was only a hallucination, after all. 

And... it had shown Mokuba and I being kind to each other, if not necessarily soft. I wasn't sure I could be soft. Kind, I might be able to handle. You can make a cruel thing of kindness, hard and unyielding, every bit as sharp as a dragon's teeth. I had teeth to spare.

What was I, in the end, but a dragon myself? Maddened and furious, snapping out at everything around me, white scales tainted beyond recognition. I glanced down at my fingers, half-expecting to see bloodstains. Nothing met my gaze but white skin. I wasn't foolish enough to think this meant my hands were clean. Even so, there was something reassuring about these fingers, their callouses, their tiny thread-thin scars. The rest of my body might be marked up from circumstances beyond my control, but these hands were mine and mine alone.

The puzzle was almost complete. It had taken the only shape it could. A white quartz dragon standing on its hind legs, blade-like wings stretched toward the sky. The gold had vanished inside the structure. The silver had pooled in a thin film across its scales. All that remained was the eyes.

I set the last two pieces gently into its empty sockets, and blue wrote itself over my soul. Beneath my hands, the dragon took a shuddering breath. It rocked forward on its haunches and peered at me, our gazes at the same level. Its eyes were impossibly brilliant. Bright enough to sear the world to ash.

 _are we ready?_ it asked me in the tilt of its head.

“Of course,” I said aloud. “We've kept him waiting long enough.”

The dragon stared me down for a moment longer – long enough that my throat tightened and my hands clenched themselves into fists. An impossible weight crushed down on my shoulders, but I forced myself to bear it. I would not be rejected here. Not by my own heart. If I was, there really would be nothing left of me.

Finally, those eyes lifted from my face. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon surged into the air and roared toward toward the heavens. The world shook with its passage. The void peeled back like old postage stamps.

And I... woke up.

* * *

The first things I was aware of were motion and shadow. Someone's hands, hovering over my neck. Too close. 

Raw instinct had me grab out. My eyes weren't fully operational yet, but that didn't matter. I hadn't survived Gozaburo to be done in by some random assassin. These hands were small and weak – easy to overpower. I locked them in place easily and pressed down hard. A warning.

Beside my ear, there was a sharp intake of breath. “Seto!”

That voice... was familiar. I blinked slowly, keeping my expression neutral while I rushed to get my bearings. The world came into focus with all the grace of a third-rate video game stuck on the loading screen. It was too bright. My eyes were dry and aching, like I'd somehow forgotten to blink for a week. At last, I was able to make out a mane of wild dark hair.

“Mo – kuba?” It came out as a jumble of confused syllables rather than a name. Unacceptable. I licked my lips and tried again. “Mokuba.”

I didn't need my sight in perfect working order to hear him break into loud sobs.

“You woke up!” he bawled, shoulders shaking. He didn't even seem to care that I was still holding his wrists too tightly. “I thought – I was afraid–”

He didn't finish that sentence. Dimly, I noticed that was rather bright of him. If he'd expressed such weakness in front of me before, I would've responded with contempt and violence. Even now, I felt the urge to push him away and leave until he got himself under control. Tears got under my skin. I made myself hold still and worked on releasing my grip. I must have been hurting him, but the second I let go, he lurched forward into my lap. We rolled backward together, out of the brightness. I blinked again and realized I'd been sitting in a patch of sunlight streaming in through a huge window. The rest of the room was in shadow, but for some stupid reason, I felt warmer here.

Another blink. I was in a wheelchair in the mansion. Had been for a while, judging by the stiffness in my neck. There were no clues in my surroundings to help me judge how long I'd been like this, or what had happened in my absence. Aside from a small, paranoid section in the back of my head, I found I didn't care much at all.

I was a mess and it was all Mokuba's fault. I had to do something to make sure he knew repeat incidents were absolutely unacceptable. So I pulled him as close as I dared and tucked his head firmly under my chin.

There. That would show him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I'm on the edge of glory  
>  and I'm hangin' on a moment of truth  
> Out on the edge of glory  
> and I'm hangin' on a moment with you_  
> -Lady Gaga, The Edge of Glory


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto stares in the mirror too long and makes plans.

Eventually, I had to push Mokuba away. There was only so much physical contact I could endure before it became unbearable. He wriggled a bit, but thankfully he didn't complain. Instead, he started worrying. Loudly.

“Seto, how are you feeling?”

Bad, to put it bluntly. My vision was online now, more or less, but my eyes still ached. The old scars on my arms were worse. My back – I didn't want to think about my back. I did so anyway, factoring in each knot of muscle and stab of nerves. The alternative was even more unbearable.

“I'll live.” My voice came out in an unfamiliar rasp. Had it always been that deep? “How long?”

“Six months,” Mokuba reported. “You were in the hospital for most of it.” He hesitated, worrying his lip with his teeth. “I tried to institute a media blackout, but someone slipped the information out.”

The image of silver hair, a sickening smile, and a whisper of _Kaiba-boy_ hit me like a truck. A physical shudder ran through me. Was this - 

No. It was ridiculous to even consider. I needed to focus, not pursue stray thoughts down the rabbit hole. That way lay nothing but raving madness. After all, adopting me had been nothing but a stray thought to Gozaburo, and look what I'd done to him.

Still, Industrial Illusions was one of my main competitors. We might be allied at the moment, but corporations, like nations, were never truly at peace. Corporate espionage was always a possibility.

“Duel Arena status?”

Mokuba flinched at my tone, but rallied quickly enough. “It's – advancing. But Seto, the Big Five are trying to steal it out from under us!”

“The project?” How shortsighted. Management was one thing, but did they really think they had an engineer who could replace me?

Mokuba shook his head frantically, sending hair everywhere. “The company!”

...what?

_(“Mr. Crawford! If you can defeat Yugi, in an official game of Duel Monsters, we will dismiss the half-dead Seto Kaiba and appoint you as the head of KaibaCorp!”)_

That – 

_(“I won't let them have KaibaCorporation even if they tear open my guts!”)_

That wasn't – 

_(If I lose, there will be no one to save Mokuba...)_

Stop. Think. Breathe. 

Panic was unacceptable. Dreams were only dreams. Pegasus J. Crawford was only a man. And even if Industrial Illusions was collaborating with my stockholders to destroy my company, what did it matter? I'd rebuilt KaibaCorp from the ground up once already. I could do it again. 

All I had to do was calm down and _breathe._

Seto Kaiba did not show weakness. Seto Kaiba did not have weakness. As long as Mokuba was here, they had no leverage on me. And if they took him...

If Pegasus put his hands on my little brother, I'd burn Duelist Kingdom down around his ears.

First, though, I had to break this situation apart. Establish how far from the baseline things had deviated. Figure out exactly what had occurred in my absence. Get a fix on the motives of those involved and prepare to exploit them ruthlessly. Nothing I hadn't been doing for years. I braced my legs against the chair and levered myself up onto my feet. For a few seconds, I struggled to find my balance. The floor was too far away.

Mokuba scrambled forward again. I shot him an icy glare and let go of the armrests. Something light swung against my chest as I lurched forward in one last, brief wobble. Then I steadied myself. Equilibrium achieved. 

“Get me caught up on the situation,” I said briskly. “Inform me of everyone you still trust. Don't spread my recovery around just yet – we want to control how it gets released. Prepare to move everything classified.” For a long moment, my eyes burned cold. “ _Do not_ go anywhere alone.”

“U-understood!” Mokuba squeaked, trembling in place. I couldn't read his expression, exactly, but his tone was both joyous and terrified.

It shouldn't have been reassuring. Even so, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Fear was something we both understood. Happiness was a more dangerous beast. But then, it always been, when I was concerned.

“Stay in the mansion,” I ordered. “Assume crisis protocols. I'm going to wash up.”

A blinding grin. “Understood!”

Good.

Bones ached when I moved. Each step made scar tissue stretch uncomfortably. The floor was still too far away. But when I stepped toward the door, it was with utter faith in my ability to keep our heads above water. Side effects of prolonged unconsciousness, Duel Monsters, Yugi Mutou – all of that would have to be put on hold until this situation was under control. There was no margin for mercy or error here. The thought brought a thin smirk to my mouth. I didn't need a mirror to know it was nothing like the false or bloodthirsty grins Gozaburo had left me. Nothing like the shy or enthusiastic smiles I'd hallucinated during my coma. 

No, this was crueler. Colder. Entirely my own. I gloried in the feeling as I paced carefully down the hall, letting muscle memory lead me to the bathroom.

If there was only one truth in life, it was this: find the right algorithm and the world would beg you to change it.

* * *

The first thing I noticed when I looked in the mirror was that there was something around my neck. A pendant of some kind, made to look like a card. I frowned down at it, searching for signs of bugs or tampering. Finding none, I turned it out with careful fingers. A tiny Mokuba beamed back. He was so small. Between three or five years old. We would still have been orphans back then.

My throat closed off without warning. Even if I'd been able to speak, I wouldn't have been able to find the words.

He must have been putting this on me when I woke up.

I should have – 

I – 

I shook my head and slammed my train of thought back on track. Right now, I needed to focus. 'Know thyself and know thy enemy' were the first steps to victory. At the moment, I might as well be a stranger to my own body. Feelings would have to wait. The locket fell gently against my chest as I returned my gaze to the wall-length mirror. 

For a moment, the apparition of a woman stared back at me. Long brown hair riddled with flyaway strands. Hazel eyes. An uneasy smile. A face which appeared... blurry, somehow, as though neither she nor I could remember it. I blinked, and she vanished.

Hmph. A ghost of the mind, leftover from a slumber which lasted six months too long. Startling, but easily overcome. Fluorescent lights hummed as I began taking inventory of myself.

The only term I could use to describe my reflection was 'stretched-out.' One last growth spurt had run rampant while I was unconscious, and the changes were very noticeable. When I'd last taken stock of myself, I had more or less normal proportions for an adolescent boy. Now my frame was about seventy percent leg and you could probably cut glass on my cheekbones. I supposed I should be thankful I hadn't felt the growing pains. Judging by the distance between my current eye level and where I last remembered it being, I'd already crossed six feet. The coma didn't appear to have impacted my overall build much. Suspicious, but not objectionable. The result, even hampered by my current attire – some kind of generic white hospital garb, easy to clean and easy to remove – was nothing short of intimidating.

Good.

It was odd not being able to recognize myself, but not as odd as it should have been. Perhaps my subconscious had picked up what was happening to my body. Why else would it have thrown twenty-five years of living with prosopagnosia at me? Not being able to recognize myself in photographs, mistaking total strangers for family members... it had been a nightmare. No wonder that girl had sought companionship in cartoon characters with simplified, easy to distinguish designs. The shift I was faced with now was far less jarring.

My hands were still the same. Or rather, they felt the same. But then, they'd been the only part of me moving consistently while I pieced myself back together. The image of them in my head kept up with the changes in my body. Everything above the wrist felt comfortable and broken in, even if my fingers were longer and more delicate than I remembered them being. 

They did exactly what I asked of them. That was enough.

At some point, my bangs had grown out. This did nothing to dull the intensity of my stare, so I had no opinion. The same could not be said of the bare skin peeking out from my sleeves. I yanked the fabric down irritably. No good. It wasn't long enough.

How many people had seen the scars? 

Had Mokuba - 

Who was I trying to kid? Of course he'd seen them – him and everyone else he'd trusted to keep me alive. Even one pair of eyes was too many. I needed names and faces. Enough pressure to keep their mouths shut. Not that it would be particularly hard.

A fact about Japan: no one wants to interfere with anyone else's ugly business.

A fact about money: if you have enough of it, you can buy anyone's silence.

A fact about me: I still couldn't look at my bare arms without remembering Gozaburo's face and the slash of hard leather on skin.

I stripped without looking and stepped immediately into the shower. My eyes stayed shut. Too many reflective surfaces. Hot water washed the dust and grime away. It did nothing to thaw the ice at my core.

* * *

When I came out properly dressed, hair damp, scars safely covered, Mokuba was waiting. He'd printed off a briefing and gathered his list. It was shorter than I'd hoped, but longer than I'd feared. He lingered while I read it over, half-turned toward the door in case he needed to run. The thought made my stomach turn over, so I set it aside and focused on the information presented.

Stocks were alarmingly low. Most of the company had accepted I was essentially dead. Industrial Illusions was definitely trying to execute a hostile takeover. Reports of earnings, transcripts of security tapes, and detailed records of in-company movements clearly illustrated that. Even without Mokuba's helpful bullet points summaries near each graph, the culprits would've been clear. 

Konosuke Oshita, vice president of business strategy. Shuzo Otaki, personnel manager. Chikuzen Oka, chief lawyer. Soichiro Ota, chief technical officer. Kogoro Daimon, my right hand man, Gozaburo's handpicked successor. The Big Five.

Daimon, I'd expected to pull something like this eventually. That he'd managed to pull the others in with him was an unpleasant surprise. Being supplanted by a child should have damaged his credibility enough to prevent something like this. Perhaps the opportunity to remove me was simply too tempting. Regardless, I didn't expect this coalition to last. As soon as they lacked a common target, they'd be at each other's throats, exactly the way they'd been before I made my offer.

Yes, I'd gone back on the deal immediately after they voted me into power. They should've expected it. No one was truly trustworthy in this world. All we had were allies of convenience and foes who hadn't shown their hands yet, and the sooner we all accepted that the better off we'd be.

 _What about Mokuba?_ asked the part of myself which, in the wake of my adventures in comaland, had dedicated itself to second-guessing every thought which crossed my mind. 

I gave its contribution exactly as much attention as it deserved: none.

Mokuba's list was only a few sentences long. This wasn't exactly a surprise – five months of brilliant but erratic leadership from a boy still attending high school wasn't exactly the best way to establish corporate loyalty. Especially not given the disaster around Death-T. Everyone on the ground level must be convinced I'd lost my mind. I couldn't even say they were wrong.

Death-T itself was still there at the bottom of Kaiba Land, empty, with only the minimum level of power and maintenance going to it.

“Why hasn't Death-T been demolished yet?” I asked sharply.

“I-it's the last thing you built,” Mokuba stammered. “I thought maybe you'd still want to work on it.”

“It's a public safety hazard. Once we're done with this, I'm removing it.” That Death-T was associated with nothing but bad memories and nightmares had nothing to do with this decision.

Mokuba subsided with a nod, looking oddly dispirited. I would assume he'd be happy to see the last of that place. Was I missing something?

If so, it would have to wait a while longer. An eerily familiar name had just leaped out near the top of Mokuba's list.

“Saruwatari. Your bodyguard?”

A nod. “He's been really steady this whole time.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to picture the man. For some reason, I kept getting a drawing of a man with a knife-sharp pompadour, leering down at Mokuba. That couldn't be right. “Picture.”

“Eh?”

I switched the target of my gaze to Mokuba. “I don't remember him. Remind me.”

Mokuba shot me an alarmed look. He clearly wanted to pursue that topic, but at the last second, he came to his senses. “A-all right. Let me bring it up.”

A few seconds of tapping on his phone. Then he handed me the device, and something inside me went cold. I knew this man as one of Gozaburo's people, who'd transferred to me along with the company. More recently, he'd been a cackling denizen of my subconscious, grabbing Mokuba like a stray cat and pulling a gun on me. 

One uncomfortable dream was no reason to form an opinion about a loyal employee. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that it would be a mistake to rely on him.

“He was part of the Death-T project.” It wasn't a question.

“Yeah,” Mokuba confirmed.

“How much contact has he had with Industrial Illusions?”

A shrug. “Not much. I mean, he follows me when I check up on the Duel Arenas, but I haven't been down there much. They're trying to block me out of it, so I decided to stay home and hack their camera feeds.”

“Efficient.” I stared down at the man on the screen, trying and failing to unsee the resemblance to an animated traitor. “Have you encountered anything about Saruwatari which implies he may have been compromised?”

Mokuba steeled his shoulders and lifted his chin. “No, Seto. He's been one of the only guys I can rely on.”

I nodded and handed him back his phone. On this, I would have to trust him. The fact that I hadn't been able to recognize Saruwatari by name concerned me. Why had I thought of a cartoon first?

...since I woke up, exactly how often had I been thinking of drawings rather than people?

_Focus, Seto. You cannot afford to be distracted._

“Where did you hide my phone?”

“Ah, it's in my room! Hold on, I'll get it.” Mokuba flew off in a blur of black hair and denim. I stepped after him on automatic. My leg nearly buckled under me. 

Change of plans – I needed to sit down very carefully and hide the shakes that were beginning to set in. I'd over-exerted myself. If I tried to do anything taxing, I'd probably collapse. When Mokuba returned, I'd have him escort me to my room. As long as I made a show of not looking at him, he should assume I was moving slowly for his sake. My legs were longer than his, after all.

The shakes were getting worse. Gritting my teeth, I leaned back to prop myself up against the wall. Being so weak was sickening. If Gozaburo were still alive - 

No. That man was safely dead now. 

But I would die myself before I let anyone see me in such a pitiful state.

I was still in charge of KaibaCorp. The Big Five, for all their scheming, were little more than figureheads. As soon as I had the evidence collected, I could defuse the traps they'd laid, cut them loose, and ruin their reputations for good measure. The corners of my mouth curled upward, unbidden.

They had sought to use me. Not just me, but Mokuba. If I'd woken up a little later, they would probably have already sprung into action.

I was going to make an example of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can tell this is a SI fic because Seto just put a) dueling and b) Yugi on hold. Hideously OOC.
> 
>  _I've been running from it all my lifetime  
>  There's nothing wrong with you, I'm searching for my right mind  
> Oh, you should've seen it they were resting on the restless  
> This happened, literally, woke up I was headless_  
> -Awolnation, Hollow Moon


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto goes out.

Seto Kaiba's miraculous revival took the media by storm. The same hunger for melodrama which had spread the news of my fall now turned no less ravenously to my rise. A substantial number of carefully-timed press releases, interviews, and tech demos helped it along. For a solid week, I survived on raw stubbornness and caffeine. Every second I had the energy to stand was a second that could be spent spinning things my way. Even the hours when I was unable to support myself could be productive as long as I had my laptop and the correct lighting. Cutting the Big Five off from the resources they'd built up in my absence was a full-time job. Bringing the company back from the brink and managing my faltering public image on top of that was another level of magnitude more difficult. 

Delegating more of the minor issues would've helped, but I had precious few allies to delegate to. Isono and Fuguta were my primary resources here – Isono to help me arrange things, Fuguta to watch my back. The two of them had been overjoyed, in a professional, understated way, to see me awake. They'd been even more pleased to see me ready to reclaim my position.

Their loyalty, like all things, was conditional. Being touched by it would be a mistake. I just wished I wasn't suddenly having difficulty telling them apart. Who told the men most loyal to me to be the same height with similar features and almost the same haircut?

Fuguta was... _understanding_ the one time I slipped up and called him Isono out loud. The way his eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses made me sick. I stopped addressing them by name until after they'd spoken. Their voices, at least, were distinct.

Mokuba helped. He could still distinguish who was who without issue, and since wherever I went, he was constantly underfoot, he was usually the first one to greet my visitors. Announcing people wasn't one of his duties as Vice President – he'd taken it on himself. He always was too good at reading me.

He knew I knew what he was doing, but neither of us talked about it. We talked very little. He kept up an irregular stream of chatter about earnings, loyalties, and what I'd missed on TV shows I didn't watch, and I let him stay glued to my side without complaint. The first few times I touched him gently on the head or shoulder, he went very still and quiet, looking up at me with the eyes of a wounded animal. Then he began to crowd closer. Now I could hardly take a step without Mokuba doing the same, just to stay firmly within the bounds of my personal space.

It was nerve-wracking to have someone always close enough to touch. If Gozaburo were still alive – 

But he wasn't, and he sooner the two of us got used to that, the better. Any distance between us could be used against us. So when Mokuba sat beside me in my office or in the car, resting his head on my shoulder to watch me send emails from two inches away, I said nothing. This wasn't weakness. It was strategy.

We were sitting like that one afternoon when he broached a very uncomfortable subject. “You're really getting rid of Death-T?”

For a split-second, my fingers paused on the keyboard. “Kaiba Land is down for repairs. Removing that failed deathtrap at the same time is only practical.” 

He shifted uneasily. “I guess.”

Where was this coming from? Had he developed some sort of attachment to that place? If so, that was unfortunate. Death-T wasn't something I could permit to exist any longer. Every time that name crossed my mind, I remembered it: the sensation of drowning in my own thoughts. Darkness closing in from all sides. Shadows with teeth.

My mind had been... confused... since I regained consciousness, but it hadn't been at war with me. Not like it had been when I drew up the plans for Death-T and tacked them onto the bottom of Kaiba Land. Driving myself mad hadn't been enough – I had to profane the one good thing I'd managed to create since taking the helm of KaibaCorp. It had nearly killed Mokuba. And it hadn't even worked in the end. 

Unacceptable. I was going to drag every shard of failure out by the root and watch it burn.

“It just seems too easy,” Mokuba said under his breath.

“Easy?” I gracefully resisted the fleeting urge to roll my eyes. He wouldn't be able to see it from this angle, anyway. “Hardly. The only simple thing about this operation is finding contractors who won't talk.” Even at the bottom of my downward spiral, I'd still had the sense to note down who I'd had built the place for future reference. Admittedly, I'd been thinking something along the lines of 'kill them, they know too much' at the time, but still.

“All we're doing is getting rid of it and covering up the hole leftover,” he argued. “What's not simple about that?”

The simplicity of childhood. It never failed to vex me. “Mokuba. What do you think I'll be doing while Death-T is dismantled?”

“Given our current schedule? We'll be in New York, giving another talk about the importance of building industry and reminding the entire R&D team that Pegasus gives lousy health benefits.”

That statement was patently ridiculous. R&D was the one department I had faith in. I'd taught them the value of loyalty years ago. Besides, if Pegasus had managed to suborn them, he wouldn't have to acquire the company. KaibaCorp lived and died on the strength of its technological innovations. Even with me out of action for half a year, R&D had managed to keep things together. They'd worked hard. It was a pity everyone else had been running around with their heads cut off.

“No,” I said bluntly, and resumed typing. “I'm going to be overseeing the removal from here. The evidence of what happened is too sensitive to leave under Isono's purview.”

“You don't trust Isono.” He made it sound like something new. 

I turned away from the screen and locked my eyes on his. “Poison. Lethal electric shocks. Hiring hitmen. Deliberate use of Solid Vision to induce cardiac arrest. Name one part of this mess that isn't a potential PR disaster and I will consider delegating the clean-up.”

Mokuba held eye contact for a few seconds before looking away. “We broke a lot of laws setting that up, huh.”

“Yes. I did.”

He sighed. “Will you be closing Kaiba Land, too?”

Ah. So that was what had been bothering him. “No. Aside from my falling unconscious shortly after the grand opening, the public has no negative impressions of Kaiba Land. It's closed due to expense and repairs. As soon as the issue in the basement is dealt with, there's no reason not to re-open.”

We were going to have to update it anyway. I'd already started coming up with new tweaks for Solid Vision, and Kaiba Land was meant to have the very best.

“Right.” A quick smile flashed over Mokuba's face. He schooled it away in moments and promptly buried himself in his phone.

“Who are you texting?” I asked automatically. In a situation like this, it was important to keep communication lines straight.

“Katsuya,” he said with deliberate offhandedness. “One of my friends, you know.”

I frowned slightly. Katsuya? The name wasn't unfamiliar, but neither was it ringing a bell. “Where did you meet?”

“At school. We kinda bonded while you were, you know. Asleep.” The cheeky grin of a boy who knew he was being a brat. “Don't worry, I'm not telling him anything important.”

“Good,” I said flatly. “If you throw my attempts to regain control of this company down the drain to try and impress a middle schooler, I'll be upset with you.”

The grin got strangely wobbly. “Got it. I'll be careful.”

I didn't know how to identify the tone he used, so I placed all my attention on slicing off Pegasus's grasping fingers. Mokuba didn't speak again for hours. When he did, the whole subject had been dropped.

* * *

_**What did yugi do to my brother**_

_hey mokie hows school?_

_**Don't. Not now.**_

****

****

**_i know he did something, jounouchi._**

_yea i know_

_i was there too, remember_

_sometimes he does stuff like that_

_makes scary faces_

_glows a bit_

_punishes the guilty_

_dunno the details but he calls it a shadow game_

_**You told me that already. I need to know what it did.**_

_6 month coma?_

_**What ELSE it did.**_

_...dude, did somethin happen_

_**I just told him I was texting you**_

_**And he said 'good.'**_

_oh shit_

_u sure he knew it was me_

_**No.**_

_**That's the problem.**_

_**I'm not sure he knows anyone.**_

_ill talk to yug_

_**Good.  
**_

* * *

From the outside, Kaiba Land was stunning. Metre upon metre of gleaming blue glass, reaching high enough to scrape the heavens. A fantasy made real and then abandoned. I had expected looking at it to hurt more than it did. Like sticking my fingers in an open wound, perhaps. Standing there at the foot of the skyscraper, I mostly felt tired. What pain lingered did so quietly. Old scar tissue on a heart long numb.

Overwork, I decided. Better to be temporarily weakened by a demanding schedule than permanently scarred. Things were slowing now. Soon enough, I'd have to think about returning to school. In the meantime, I was here, watching the greatest failure of my life be dismantled and tucked away.

The doors had been propped open. A steady stream of workmen went in an out, removing chunks of machinery carefully rendered unrecognizable in a series of innocuous boxes. They'd been working round the clock for hours. It was nearly done.

Across the street, a small crowd of onlookers were gossiping and taking pictures. One of them stood out for some reason. Probably the hair. You didn't see many blonds in Japan, let alone wearing the blue Domino High uniform. He skulked under an awning, arms crossed, glaring directly at me. Something about that expression sent a flare of irritation through me, but the feeling didn't last. Neither did the memory of his face. When I turned away, it was gone.

Three more loads. Two more. One.

Mokuba checked his phone and nodded seriously, fully immersed in his Vice President persona. “That's everything, sir.”

I tilted my head back further. The sky was overcast. It was going to rain soon. “Let's go.”

We walked down the street in silence, leaving the blond punk to continue loitering. Saruwatari and Fuguta tailed us from a few feet behind. The car was waiting for us around the corner, where it wouldn't block the moving trucks. The last one to leave rumbled as it drove off, tearing a scab off my soul in the process.

“Seto?”

The sound I made could only be described as noncommittal. Mokuba was switching out of professional mode and into annoying little brother mode more and more quickly of late. 

“Seto, I'm hungry.”

Case in point.

“We ate a few hours ago,” I told him.

“But I'm hungry now,” he whined. “And look! There's a Burger World! It's a sign, Seto!”

It most certainly was not. But I let him grab my arm and steer me into the restaurant anyway. I didn't have anything particularly pressing to attend to. The immediate flurry of press conferences was over. Preliminary marketing efforts for Solid Vision had been immensely successful. KaibaCorp was back in the black. As soon as the Duel Disk hit shelves, we'd be at the top once again. R&D had been given a pat on the back for their good work, most of the infiltrators had been rooted out, and the Big Five were well on their way to complete impotence. 

I'd already had Otaki unceremoniously fired, along with most of his cronies, after airing out some embezzlement charges I'd been sitting on for years. Oshita had been corralled away from anything important; now I was just waiting for him to slip up. Oka's firm had been blacklisted – I'd had some whistleblowers leak unfortunate details about his other clients. The news was already blaming him for KaibaCorp's stumble. Ota and Daimon would be more difficult to dispose of, but they were paradoxically easier to manage. All I had to do was keep them firmly under observation. Their own nervousness did the rest.

A pathetic showing, all in all. If they'd worked together, they might've stood a chance. Not that I was going to complain about having more time to spend with Mokuba. Even if his taste in restaurants was deplorable.

“Hello! Welcome to Burger World!” a brunette waitress chirped with inhuman levels of good cheer. “Will that be a table for... two...?” She froze in place, still smiling, eyes wide with shock. How dramatic. 

“Yep!” Mokuba beamed up at her, completely ignoring her lapse.

“R-right,” she squeaked, eyes glued to my face. “Let me seat you!”

She put us at a corner booth. A few seconds later, Saruwatari and Isono joined us at a nearby table. I watched the reflections of other patrons in the window, idly cataloguing their movements, while Mokuba rifled through the menu. He ordered for us both – some kind of awful double-decker monstrosity that turned my stomach. While he was busy with his first bite, I nudged my burger in his direction and stole his fries.

“Hey!”

“You're getting the better deal here,” I assured him, and began crunching through the newly acquired bag. Salt, fat, and that peculiarly deep-fried taste. There was nothing out there quite like junk food. Every bite carved away a scrap of weariness. By the time the wide-eyed waitress returned with the bill, I felt alive again. Alive and rebellious. 

I'd been wearing school uniforms out since I woke up, mostly for convenience. My closet was full of identical blue outfits. Apparently, Domino High had continued sending me new ones throughout my coma. Clearly they'd appreciated KaibaCorp's donations. That said, the uniform itself did me no favours. Worse: it was boring.

Gozaburo had controlled everything, from my diet to my wardrobe. If he was gone, what was stopping me from dressing how I wished, exactly?

_Note to self, begin researching practical trenchcoat designs._

When we left, the blond punk from earlier was outside. That hair was even more distinctive than I'd thought. He brushed past me on his way in, making a valiant to trip me. I stepped neatly over his outstretched foot and ignored him. Lowlifes like that didn't deserve acknowledgment.

* * *

“Ah, hello? This is the Kame Game Shop-”

“What did you do to him?”

“M-Mokuba? How did you get this number?”

“Googled it, genius. Now use that high IQ brain which beat me and think real hard about this next question. _What did you do to my brother, Yugi Mutou?"_

“I – I don't really...”

“Don't really _what._ ”

“Don't... really... know?”

“You are just – unbelievable. You can break peoples' minds with a snap of your fingers and you don't even know what it does? My brother might have brain damage because of you! What if... what if he's just been faking everything since he woke up?” 

“Mokuba...”

“What if he doesn't even recognize me?”

“Mokuba. Deep breaths. One-two-three-four. Count with me.”

“One-two-three-screw you.”

“See, you're doing fine. No need to panic. We can figure things out. He's going back to school soon, right?”

“Yeah. Within the week.”

“I'll try and talk to him there. I... I can't promise he'll talk to me, but if there is something up, I'll definitely notice it.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“...I wasn't panicking.”

“I didn't say you were.”

* * *

Domino High was overjoyed to hear I'd be returning. Every member of the faculty had congratulations and well-wishes to pass on. Even the ones who'd never so much as seen me in the halls sent welcoming emails and delighted voicemails. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. After the twelfth unnecessary call and the twentieth email, I snapped my laptop shut and set my phone to emergency numbers only. Then I left my office in a swirl of purple fabric. There were still calls to make, reports to go over, and soon-to-be-former employees to have removed from my life, but I wasn't going to get any more work done today.

Mokuba had returned to Domino Middle. Without him, the mansion was empty. I drifted silently through the halls, a ghost in my own house, as my feet drew me unerringly to my room. It had been a while since I had time to myself. This was by design – there were few things more unpleasant than spending time in my own head. Sometimes, however, I had no choice.

The lock read my fingerprints and clicked open. Inside lay what had once been a sterile showroom, before it had been hit by a hurricane. White flooring, neat bedspread, spartan nightstand, and paperwork. Paperwork everywhere. If it had a surface, it was covered in design briefings and reports. Spending so much time on the move had gotten me in the habit of working before going to bed. And after going to bed. I should probably break this habit before I started accidentally pulling all-nighters.

On the nightstand, a flash of colour caught my eye. Cards? 

My deck.

I was in motion before I realized it. The second my fingers made contact, there was an electric charge. A distant roar sounded in my ears. Suddenly the air was thick was possibility. For a moment, I was invincible.

But that was an illusion. No sooner had I risen to the heavens than he tore me down. Yugi Mutou. King of Games. My enemy. The one who had broken my winning streak and then broken my mind. A boy I had wronged.

Why was I dwelling on this? I had more important things to worry about. I closed my eyes and tried to put down the cards. My fingers wouldn't release them. A soft huff of laughter escaped my chest. What had I expected? This game had been my lifeline. Even the hollow shell of a person Gozaburo had made of me had been able to love Duel Monsters.

“Really, how foolish.” I fanned out the cards and picked one at random. Pot of Greed. Hitotsu-Me Giant. Mirror Force. Not a single white dragon among them, as expected.

I might have claimed the dragons, but they didn't belong to me.

...even so.

Even so, I – 

I snapped the deck back together and leaned forward, bowing my head over it. When had I fallen to my knees? Why wouldn't my eyes stop stinging?

Why were the stupidest things tumbling out of my mouth?

“I thought if I had you, I'd stop being afraid,” I whispered to the cards I hadn't drawn. “I could remember how to smile. I wanted to feel _safe._ ”

They were cards. They couldn't answer. But for a moment, I felt a vague sort of warmth against my fingers.

It took me entirely too long to get a hold of myself. As soon as I could breathe properly, I set the cards back on the nightstand, cleared off the bed, and collapsed on top of the blankets. Sleep deprivation had clearly set in. If I couldn't rely on myself to stay calm and rational, I might as well hand KaibaCorp over to Pegasus now. On the bright side, at least I had a solid excuse for hallucinating this time.

I had better not run into these issues in class. High school was insanity-inducing enough already. It didn't need any help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You put on a faith facade,  
>  Think you're holy when you're not.  
> I hate to break it to you baby,  
> But you're simply lost._  
> -PVRIS, Holy


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto picks fights and wins them.

“Seto?”

“Hm.”

“What are you working on?”

“Database restructuring. Everything needs to be updated.”

“You didn't used to do that.”

“I used to have reliable employees.”

“...yeah. You did, huh.”

* * *

Three weeks after I woke up, I sat across from Kogoro Daimon, a small stack of unsigned papers on the table between us, and told him to get out of my company. The allies he'd gathered had already been fired, encouraged to quit, or coincidentally placed on dead-end projects. His hard-earned skills at brown-nosing and manipulation had failed him. He was in a great deal of trouble and he knew it.

He fought. He blustered. He threw tantrums like a child. But he never tried to lay a hand on me. I ratcheted up my opinion of him obligingly. It had taken me very little effort to get Ota to snap. A systematic campaign of isolation? Clear signs of tampering on his computer? The theft and destruction of every shred of evidence related to his deal with Industrial Illusions? Child's play. The second he put his hands around my throat, I had photographic evidence of assault on a minor, and he was bending over backwards to avoid jail time.

It would've been convenient to take care of Daimon the same way, but my former right-hand man was too cunning to fall for it. That wasn't to say my preparations had been ineffective. His eyes were raw and red, his hair and suit both messes. To make matters worse, he'd started yelling the second I walked into the meeting room. He'd only shut up once, for a few seconds after I slapped the resignation forms down.

At first, this farce had been entertaining. Now it was getting on my nerves. “Mr. Daimon. Compose yourself. As of this moment, you are still a proud employee of KaibaCorp.”

That actually shocked him speechless. There was something truly priceless about the sight of a grown man flapping his mouth open and closed like a fish.

“Sit down,” I suggested.

He sat.

“You have two options on front of you. You can sign these–” I tapped the table just beside the forms. “–and leave KaibaCorp peacefully, or you can continue to make a fool of yourself. One of these choices leads to a quiet retirement with your current savings and what's left of your reputation.” A thin smile stole over my face. “Do you want to know where the other leads?”

As it turned out, he did not. By the end of the day, the forms were signed and Daimon had left the building. One more weight lifted from my shoulders. I stayed in my office until evening, facilitating the restructuring of the freshly-trimmed workforce, and tried not to think too far ahead. Yes, I'd done something very risky by cutting off most of my top executives. Yes, the tactics I'd used to get rid of them were dirty, dangerous, and definitely illegal. Yes, it was entirely possible they'd go after me for revenge, no matter what I was holding over their heads. But if I couldn't focus on keeping things together now, it didn't matter what they threw at me in the future. Why couldn't I just focus on getting all the departments in order before I went back to school next week?

Right. I was going back to school in a week. My brain, ever-obliging, decided to fixate on that instead of possible traitors. I'd missed literal months of homework. Admittedly, I'd gotten most of it done in advance and Domino High was tripping over itself to offer make-up tests, but still. As things stood, I'd failed. Failed out of Domino High, the mediocre public school I'd chosen for the express purpose of phoning it in from a classroom as close to KaibaCorp HQ as I could manage. The concept made me want to wither up and die.

I was going to have face my classmates. I didn't even remember my classmates. What if they knew what had happened? Worse, what if they tried to talk to me about it?

Disgusting.

There was only one bright spot in my future: the possibility of finding and dueling Yugi Mutou. But even this was tarnished by the harsh grit of reality. Did I have the time to locate one classmate just to play a card game with him when my company was in such a delicate state?

More to the point: if I found him, would I even recognize him?

Stupid. This whole train of thought was going nowhere. Time to clock out. If I was going to get any more work done this evening, it would be done from home, with Mokuba where I could see him. It really was convenient that he'd gotten in the habit of sticking so close to me. It saved me the trouble of keeping him there.

* * *

“Seto?”

“Aa.”

“What're we gonna do when things calm down?”

“We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“'cause if you're still interested in Yugi Mutou–”

_“Mokuba.”_

“S-sorry.”

“We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

* * *

Now that I'd cleaned up the Big Five, there was only one obstacle remaining. One I was unfortunately familiar with. Over the years, I'd established a set of rules for successful interactions with Pegasus J. Crawford. 

Rule one: stay as far away from him as possible. Phone calls, webcams, and emails were my staunchest allies here. His utterly ridiculous ability to cold-read was affected by distance, especially if he couldn't see my face. If he did manage to corner me into a face-to-face meeting, I'd already lost.

Rule two: if I had to meet him in person, I could not show weakness. Pegasus thrived on getting reactions out of people. To that end, he constantly invaded my personal space, called me all manner of ridiculous nicknames, and went from offering me a job at II – _entry-level of course, can't have accusations of nepotism, Kaiba-boy_ – to implying I'd murdered Gozaburo myself in the same sentence. He'd do anything to get me off-guard. Therefore, my only defence was to remain cold and aloof. No matter what he said or did, I could never let myself respond with more than arrogant contempt.

Rule three: overkill was the only victory condition. If I wasn't going into things with all of my pieces in order, an alphabets' worth of back-up plans, and the absolute certainty that no one was ready to stab me in the back, I might as well not bother.

There were more rules, but they got increasingly specific, each the product of a single disastrous meeting. Pegasus had never managed to get at me in the same way twice. I took bitter pride in that. Watching him sweat through the screen of a secured laptop gave me an entirely different flavour of satisfaction. One part relief that I could still reliably identify him – with that hair, he was hard to overlook – one part pleasure I'd managed to predict him. Everything else was sheer concentrated sadism. If everything went to plan, I was going to make this man cry.

“How unusual of you to reach out to me,” he said in his usual genial tones. “It's been simply ages since we talked, Kaiba-boy.”

Translation: I don't know why you called me but I'm not happy about it.

“It's only been a few months, Mr. Crawford. I'm afraid I had other things to take care of first.”

Translation: I know exactly what you've been up to, and I'm tipping my hand because I'm confident I've already destroyed your plans.

Pegasus laughed airily. A few strands of his long, silver hair parted, letting that off-putting metal eye of his peek through. “Of course! I understand completely. Meant to send my regards, but some things came up, and I'm afraid you know how it goes. At any rate, I trust you're feeling well.”

Translation: I have looked into your eyes and now know you better than you know yourself, and I am going to use that knowledge to be a dick about the fact that you just woke up from a coma. I wish you had just died in your sleep, but your continued survival amuses me. 

“I'm fine. KaibaCorp is expecting record highs in the next quarter. As is Industrial Illusions, I trust, since you've already purchased so many of our prototypes.”

Translation: I hacked your bank accounts and retroactively charged you for everything you stole from me. Good luck proving it in court, asshole.

For a second, Pegasus' smile faltered. Then it came back with a vengeance. “You never fail to impress, Kaiba-boy. If only your father could see you now.”

Under the table and safely out of his view, I clenched my fist until the bones creaked. That, there was no need to translate. “I have always endeavoured to meet the expectations laid upon me. As such, it pains me to announce that I'm suspending any further joint projects between Industrial Illusions and KaibaCorp.”

“What?” Shock. Raw, naked shock. I savoured that expression like the sweetest of poisons. 

“Half my board of executives have turned in their resignations.” No point in sharing the details. If Pegasus didn't know already, he would by the end of the day. “I suspect the other half will follow suit shortly. It seems this recent upset was too much for them. I take the responsibility for their loss fully on my shoulders. However, it's leaving KaibaCorp's remaining staff with very little spare time for outside projects.” I lowered my head slightly. If you didn't know me very well, you might mistake that gesture for remorse. “I do intend to complete the Duel Arena and its follow-up product, the Duel Disk, within a few months. We can discuss renewing KaibaCorp's partnership with Industrial Illusions once things have settled down here.” 

Translation: I've already identified your allies and ruined them. If you try anything, you'll join them.

It took Pegasus another second to regain control of his face. Delightful. “But of course, Kaiba-boy. Riding out the waves of the business world is far from easy. You've already done quite well for your age.” He toyed with a lock of hair, flashing his heavy gold eye again. “Don't hesitate to reach out to me for advice. It would be my pleasure to support you.”

Vague pleasantries, a reminder he had six whole years on me, and a backhanded compliment. Ha. For once, I'd beaten him into retreat. This victory was the headiest thing I'd tasted in six months. Perhaps it was the adrenaline which made me say something more rather than just hang up.

“Mr. Crawford, if you have a personal interest in Solid Vision, I encourage you to send me your request whenever it's convenient for you. I will certainly take time out of my schedule to look at your proposal.” Finally, I let myself smile. “After all, we are business partners.”

The conversation ended very quickly after that, which was as good as a confession. Pegasus J. Crawford was many things, but in my mind, his definitive trait would always be 'self-serving.' There was poison in him, something which had once been soft now hard and sharp as diamond. I used to envy him for it. Now, I found myself tempted to pity him.

Once upon a time, Pegasus had loved something – or rather, someone. Cyndia Crawford, dead of brain cancer at seventeen. Losing her had shattered him. I didn't need another round of hallucinations to connect the dots.

Unfortunately for him, Solid Vision was no Frankensteinian resurrection technique. All it would be able to revive was the image of his wife. Even so, I extended it as an olive branch. I might have won this round, but the war was far from decided.

Such was life in the wonderful world of business.

 _Cheer up, Seto,_ I thought dryly as I stood up and stretched. _Soon enough, you'll be back at school, and you will dream about this call._

Not even Pegasus J. Crawford could compare to the horrors of the public school system.

***

“Seto?”

“Nn.”

“I wanna meet up with Katsuya after school. It's been ages.”

“You're coming straight back until this is over.”

“Come on! I'll take Saruwatari with me. I'll be fine.”

“You're a kidnap risk.”

“I'm always a kidnap risk! That hasn't kept me from doing stuff in years.”

“...maybe it should've.”

“Huh? Seto, what's that supposed to mean? ...Seto?”

***

Yugi stared his reflection down and squared his shoulders. “Come out, please.”

He blinked. Nothing.

“We need to talk about it. Kaiba, I mean.”

Silence. Silence, and his own worried face. Lovely.

If someone had asked Yugi half a year ago to tell them everything he knew about Seto Kaiba, he'd have gone through everything in about thirty seconds. Partly because half a year ago, Yugi didn't really talk much unless the subject was games, but mostly because he'd have been able to count the facts he knew about Kaiba on one hand. 

“Fact one,” Yugi murmured aloud. “Kaiba was a transfer student from some out-of-prefecture prep school. Fact two. That prep school had a white uniform. Fact three. Kaiba was very quiet. Fact four. Kaiba was always smiling.”

Fact five? There was no fact five. Kaiba was just a silent presence in the front corner of the classroom, his nose always tucked into some foreign book. He and Yugi might have both been quiet kids who spent most of their time alone, but they were on different wavelengths entirely. Yugi had run into him a few times in the halls, apologized, and been given a soft smile in response. That was the sum total of their interactions. Then Kaiba'd overheard Yugi talking about Grandpa's treasured card in class. It all went downhill from there. 

Now Yugi could fill a book with everything he knew about Seto Kaiba: his past, his mindset, his medical records. Most of the information came from Mokuba Kaiba. Which was fine, really. Jounouchi had practically adopted him after everything, but he seriously hated Kaiba, and the kid needed someone to talk about his brother with. Yugi knew Mokuba wasn't telling them everything, but even reading between the lines, it wasn't hard to tell that his family situation wasn't great. Between his brother _(losing a Shadow Game)_ having some kind of psychotic break, their father committing suicide, and... probably all kinds of child abuse... Yugi couldn't be anything but happy to lend Mokuba an ear.

It was just that most of the things Mokuba talked about were very, very personal. 'What my brother was probably thinking when he left me to die in the deathtrap he built' level personal. The kind of personal Yugi suspected Kaiba would rather kill than let out. 

Well, the old Kaiba, anyway. Yugi hadn't actually met the new one.

That was a whole other can of worms.

He slapped himself sharply across the cheeks, yanking his straying train of thought back on the tracks, and resumed staring intently into the mirror. It was so frustrating. Yugi could feel something there, watching from behind his eyes, but when he actually looked for it? Nothing. 

“I just want to ask you some questions.”

Nada.

“I just – I just want to know what happened.”

Zip. His reflection was starting to look strained. That, unfortunately, was all Yugi. He sighed and folded in on himself, the puzzle clunking heavily on his desk.

“I just want to know if it fixed him, or...”

The one thing Yugi could confidently state as the thesis of the book he'd never write was this: Seto Kaiba was fundamentally broken. Might've been his upbringing. Might've been the delusional episode Mokuba pinpointed as having started right after Kaiba had, you know, stolen the Blue-Eyes. Might've been the... whatever Yugi, or some other Yugi, had done to him. The thing Yugi couldn't quite remember. It didn't really matter, in the end.

What mattered was this: Kaiba had been asleep for months. When he woke up, he wasn't quite the same. He stopped being able to recognize people. He didn't care about Duel Monsters anymore. And after going so far to get his revenge, he hadn't even mentioned Yugi once. 

A lump formed in Yugi's throat. Something like static crackled over his skin. From this angle, he couldn't see his reflection. He couldn't make himself look back up.

Mokuba was his friend, sort of. They were no longer enemies, and as it turned out, there wasn't that much distance between a childish teenager and a mature eleven-year-old. Plus, there were some things you couldn't go through without forging a bond. Mokuba had already placed his life in Yugi's hands once. If he showed up on the doorstep tomorrow, red-eyed and crying, Yugi knew he'd let the kid in without a second thought. 

Too bad that was a real possibility. Because if Mokuba was telling the truth, then Kaiba wasn't Kaiba anymore, and it was all Yugi's fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: can't wrap my head around a single aspect of business.  
> Also me: Writes a fic focusing on a teenage CEO entrenched in business world intrigue.
> 
>  _So I walk with the the Devil  
>  My rivals best be careful  
> 'Cause when you're already dead  
> There's no gun at your head_  
> -Karliene, Walk with the Devil


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto goes to school and doesn't meet Yugi Mutou.

I spent my second to last day before returning to Domino High at Domino High. Counter-intuitive, perhaps, but it made perfect sense to me. I had no choice about returning to school – not if I wanted to keep my head above water – but I could and would case the institution all over again. I'd done this once before, albeit from a distance, back when I first transferred. Mostly, that meant I'd had Isono and a few interns go over the facilities while I matched the principal smile for smile and tried to keep the slow feeling of suffocation from showing on my face.

This time, it was impatience and frustration I was trying to keep a lid on while the principal expounded on the non-existent virtues of Domino High. Both of us knew the best thing this school had going for it was its location, and yet neither of us could admit it aloud. I didn't condemn him and everything he worked for; he didn't get on his knees and beg me to fix it. 

Instead, he talked about things the school had – or could have, if they got just a bit more funding – which I might appreciate, while I held eye contact and quietly redesigned the building in my head. Gym renovated. Sports fields expanded over that ugly strip mall which hadn't seen real profit in decades. We could probably fit a Duel Arena in the courtyard, too. The principal hadn't mentioned that one, but I could call it a donation to the community provided KaibaCorp paid for the maintenance and I didn't charge.

That was how an exchange worked. If only I could redesign his office so easily. Not a single plant? Really? I had half a mind to turn my own office into an indoor jungle just to make an example.

Actually, that sounded like an improvement over the grey box Gozaburo had left me. Memo to self: buy more plants.

Eventually, the principal ran out of things to throw my way, or at least he ran out of things he could pass off as donations to the school rather than him personally. I didn't begrudge him for his selfishness. Humans were selfish creatures. Regardless, he stood up, sweat shining on the top of his partially-bald head, and offered me a tour. You know, just to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into.

The terms he used were something more like 'witnessing the impact my investments would have,' but honestly, he wasn't fooling anyone.

I accepted. It got me out of his dull office. Some well-buried part of me cringed at the thought of walking the halls again, where people my own age could see me. I beat it back down and got to work worrying about things that might actually matter: namely, the odds of me running into Yugi Mutou while I was here.

The chances were pretty low. It was Saturday – only half classes were offered, and delinquents tended to skip even those. From what little I recalled of that little friend group in real life, they were all troublemakers. My hallucinations had only reinforced that impression. I was going to have to re-familiarize myself with their actual selves soon, lest my perception be permanently warped by animated characters leaping off buildings and nearly drowning themselves in the name of friendship.

Perhaps it was a good thing the principal was so willing to seek out investment. Walking through the halls reminded me that Domino High was mostly composed of bland corridor and blander classrooms. It hadn't bothered me before, but now I found myself deeply opposed to spending most of my day in this place. Two weeks in and I might have been committing stealth donations just to get the walls a slightly less objectionable shade of off-white. 

A panel starring Yugi Mutou, version 2: the angstening, standing on the school roof and staring angrily off into the distance, flashed through my head. Maybe I'd get them to add some extra fencing around the roof, too. And a lock.

“We are so very thankful for your continued patronage,” the principal said, smiling hugely as he cleared the way. It was early afternoon, but there were a surprising number of students in the halls. Classes must be over.

“I'm grateful for your kind consideration of my circumstances,” I replied with the bare minimum of courtesy. “It can't be easy to accommodate my schedule.” 

By which I meant, thanks for letting me finish all my outstanding tests and projects a bit late. Not that there were a lot of them. I'd spent the last couple days sitting in an empty room, pencil scratching, while the observing teacher's eyebrows climbed higher and higher. She'd been new, I suspected. My memories of the last term weren't the clearest, but I could faintly recall a woman with too much make-up talking to me like I was a toddler. Her replacement was calmer. We even had a fairly enjoyable chat about imaginary numbers as I waited for the next round of testing to begin.

“Not at all,” the principal enthused. He led me down towards the arts classrooms – utterly substandard, all of them, where had they even bought that kiln – and continued crowing about all the good my money would be doing. I trailed after him, trying not to make eye contact with the crowd.

It didn't help. Even if I wasn't looking at them, I could feel them looking at me. Eyes on my shoulders, my arms, my back, my legs. It made my flesh crawl.

What did they want?

What did anyone want?

_Figure it out, Seto. You need to know. You need to succeed. You need to win. If you can't even do that..._

I quickened my pace, bringing myself up beside the principal rather than a few steps behind him. It was rude, but I couldn't make myself care. With him blocking one of my sides, the stares reduced by half.

This wasn't surrender, it was strategy.

* * *

“Yugi.”

“Mmm,” Yugi replied absently, utterly focused on the puzzle at his desk. He'd grabbed it from Grandpa's collection before going to school. It had been a while since he tried a jigsaw puzzle. They'd made him sick for a bit after the thing with Honda and Ms. Chono. When he'd first picked this one up, it had been as much to prove that jigsaws weren't ruined for him as much as it was to find something to do.

“Hey, Yugi.” 

“Uh-huh. I'm listening.” He almost had the frame finished. The outline was taking shape. He'd dumped the pieces out all at once and then turned the box over, so he didn't actually know what the picture was going to be. Lots of little petal-shapes. Maybe it was flowers?

“Yugi! Pay attention!”

A strangled yelp flew out of Yugi's mouth as he almost flew off his seat. “A-Anzu! Why are you yelling at me?”

“Because someone wasn't listening,” she said, stressing the 'someone' until it was hardly recognizable. “You totally zoned out!” 

He ducked his head, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry. I was just focused, I guess.”

Anzu huffed, dropping her gaze to his cluttered desk. Cluttered with puzzle pieces, that is. “You're making a puzzle? I thought you were into Duel Monsters now?” She shook her head before he could answer. “Doesn't matter. Yugi, Kaiba came back to school.”

The bottom of Yugi's stomach dropped out. “W-what?”

Kaiba wasn't supposed to be here until tomorrow. Yugi had spent the last week trying to decide whether to try and catch him by the gates, corner him during lunch, or just call in sick. Removing the temptation to stay in bed forever was half the reason Yugi had come to school today. Was this some kind of calculated strike against his emotionally well-being?

No, that was ridiculous. If Kaiba was trying to make Yugi miserable, he'd probably build another death trap.

Ugh. Yugi leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling, trying to centre himself in the pattern on the tiles. He'd known this day would come. He'd just thought he had more time to prepare himself. 

“Where's Jounouchi?” he asked finally.

Anzu's mouth pressed into a firm line. “Keeping an eye on him.”

Yugi winced. “That... seems like overkill.”

“Don't worry,” she said grimly. “He's not going to pick a fight.” 'Because Kaiba will start the fight for him', her eyes said.

A sigh died in Yugi's chest. She was so certain things would be simple. He wished he could borrow her certainty. “Please tell me Honda's with him, at least.”

That made Anzu roll her eyes. “Of course, duh. I'm not stupid. We're trying to keep an eye on Kaiba, not enable an assault. Mokuba still cares what happens to his brother.”

Yugi ducked his head. “Of course.” He gave his jigsaw a wistful look and stood up from his desk. The Millennium Puzzle sat heavy around his neck. “Hey, who knows. Maybe he'll apologize.”

“I... really doubt that.”

“It could happen,” Yugi insisted.

“I really, really doubt that.”

“Look, I know he didn't say anything when he saw you at work-”

The face Anzu made was both horrified and horrifying. “Listen, I respect your positive attitude. But if Kaiba says one nice thing to us, I will eat that puzzle of yours.”

Yugi's hand flew automatically to the heavy gold pendant before he paused. “...which one?”

“Yugi!”

He laughed and scurried for the door as she mockingly chased after him. With so much laughter in the air, he could almost forget the memory of dead eyes and a cruel little boy's crying face.

* * *

There was someone following me. Two someones. After a brief but visceral moment of certainty that Pegasus had weighed his options and made a move against me, I realized they were students here. Maybe the uniforms should have been a hint, but you could steal these things pretty easily. No, it was the stupid hair, the slouches, and the constant stream of mumbling that clued me in. Also, the fact that no one else seemed to find their presence all that odd. A few seconds in, I recognized the hair on one of them. Blond, fluffy, looked like it hadn't been washed in a few days. That punk again.

How many blonds who hated me did Domino High have? I didn't recall irritating that many people last term.

Maybe it was just the one.

Ha. As if. I might not have encountered Jounouchi Katsuya since I woke up, but there was no way I could fail to recognize someone I'd chained to a serial killer. For all the bluster that may or may not have slipped out of my mouth during that downward spiral, I did remember the people I'd personally screwed over. How else was I supposed to be prepared when they inevitably came back for revenge?

Forget it. Whoever this was, he and his friend weren't important.

No sooner had I thought this than two more kids ran out of a classroom and joined the pack of stalkers. I felt a vein near my eye twitch. The whispers got exponentially louder.

The principal noticed I was gritting my teeth and began walking faster. “So, as you can see, the Domino High campus has much to offer the community!”

Right now, I wasn't seeing anything but the reflections of four teenagers in the nearest window, all staring at me with varying degrees of hostility. The blond looked like he would happily set me on fire, for example. His taller friend and the girl would probably try and put out the flames, but they'd definitely kick harder necessary. And the fourth one –

Wait. Where was the fourth one?

The principal led me down a sharp turn, and for a second, I could make my last tagalong out. No wonder I hadn't seen him before. He was tiny. So small that his head barely reached the window. Also, his hair was the single most ridiculous thing I had ever seen, and I'd had dinner with Pegasus J. Crawford. More than once, even. 

What was that even supposed to be? How many colours had he worked in there? How many hours had he spent on it? It looked like he'd rolled straight out of bed and into a bowl of dye, but whatever he had going on there, it was clearly intentional.

You know what? I didn't have the brain to spare for this. I shook my head a fraction, dismissing the small boy with questionable taste in hairstyles, and went back to conducting a perimeter scan. If Yugi Mutou showed his face, I would know. Sheer willpower would overcome the blurriness of my memories.

It had to.

Otherwise, I – 

A shift of fabric. Footsteps stomping toward me. The blond punk was making his way down the hall, jaw set, eyes burning. My eyes followed his advance, assessing. The way his weight was positioned told me he knew how to fight. No formal training, but experience and the willingness to hurt could make up for a lot. The rawness of every movement told me that he was trying to hold himself back. 

How considerate. Nonetheless, I still had no time for him and his grievances. Once the tour was over, I'd booked the rest of the day for an engineering binge. Hopefully nine hours in the workshop would get rid of the worst of my nerves before school resumed. When the blond was halfway toward me and just opening his mouth, I very deliberately turned away and asked the principal something. What, lord knows, but it got him talking, and that gave us both the excuse to ignore the blond when he finally started talking.

“Hey!”

'Did you hear something?' the principal's strained grin asked me.

'Not at all,' said my expressionless face. 'Now keep talking. If I'm going to be funding a whole new school, the least you can do is be my shield.'

* * *

When Kaiba was in sight, the world moved in slow motion. The second he vanished, Yugi felt it snap back into normal time. The clocks started ticking again. People murmured in the halls, trying to figure out what was happening. The weight of the Millennium Puzzle suddenly tripled, making the breath whooshed out of Yugi's chest all at once. It was only Anzu's firm grasp on his arm that kept him from falling to his knees.

Jounouchi let out an actual growl and started forward, cracking his knuckles. “That asshole! I'm gonna – hey, what gives?”

“Calm down and think for a second.” Honda kept his tone carefully level and his hand tight on Jounouchi's shoulder. “He didn't recognize us.”

“So he's puttin' on an act! Nothin' new there.”

Anzu bit her lip. “I don't think that was acting. Jounouchi, what exactly did Mokuba tell you earlier?”

“Hah? He said Kaiba was bein' weird and quiet. Havin' trouble recognizing people who work for him. And that he'd basically glued Mokuba to his side like the controllin' bastard he is.”

From what Yugi recalled, Mokuba hadn't been overly distressed about that last part. The previous statements were more concerning. Part of Yugi said _something went wrong during his judgement._ The rest said _brain damage confirmed._ Yugi wasn't sure which option was worse. Judging by the reluctant worry flashing over Anzu's face, the two of them were on the same page.

“Do you think something happened to Kaiba while he was unconscious?” she asked softly.

“I don't know what I did to put him in that coma,” Yugi said, nails cutting into the flesh of his palms. “So I have no clue what could've gone wrong.”

“But you think something did go wrong.”

Yugi thought of Kaiba as-he-was: towering head and shoulders above the crowd but holding himself like he expected to be attacked at any second. Gliding down the hall in utter silence, his once-smiling mouth flat and lifeless, dissecting the man escorting him with eyes like scalpels. Those same eyes, a clear and heartless blue, staring right through Yugi like air. He lowered his head, unable to look at Anzu any longer. “Yeah. I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: plot will happen this chapter!  
> Plot: laughs uproariously.
> 
>  _I won't put white into your hair  
>  I won't make noises in your stairs  
> I will be kind and I'll be sweet  
> If you stop staring straight through me_  
> -Mother Mother, Ghosting


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto doesn't believe in friendship.

As soon I was back in the mansion, I grabbed my deck, locked myself in the basement workshop, and got started on that engineering binge. This was my last day as a free man and Mokuba was still in class; I was going to spend it in my own company, working on something that actually mattered. I lost myself happily in the inner workings of the Duel Disk. 

If I was honest, there wasn't much left to straighten out: the holograms experienced the occasional glitch from time to time, but that could probably be put down to dust in the system, and it rarely lasted more than a few seconds. Besides, test users had reported that Kuriboh squeaking unprompted or environmental cards interacting with each other in unexpected ways actually added to the experience. I might have insisted on perfection if I hadn't seen Blue-Eyes White Dragon tilt its head to look at me in the earliest stages of production and had to leave the room to avoid embarrassing myself and everyone else on the team. Nobody wants to see their boss cry. 

Final sound tweaks. Final animation overview. Final system tweaks. Final battery design. It was enough to keep me busy for several hours. Eventually, I ran out of things to tweak, and there was nothing do to but test the finished model. I stared down at the completed device for almost a full minute before I lost patience with myself.

_What are you afraid of, Seto Kaiba?_

The only acceptable answer was _nothing._ I gritted my teeth and slammed the Duel Disk into place. Its traps tightened around my arm, gathering relevant biodata, and settled in at the optimum level of tension. The machine hummed as it started up. I drew my first card before it was even done turning on.

This wasn't a duel. But it wasn't not a duel, either. Perhaps it shouldn't have surprised me to find blue eyes and sharp teeth on the other side of the card.

No point in announcing the draw. That system had already been tested. But something in the back of my head twinged as I placed the Blue-Eyes White Dragon into the correct slot. The silence felt wrong. It deserved to be announced.

 _Shut up,_ I thought viciously. My jaw was beginning to ache. 

The summoning animation played perfectly. First, blue patterns wove themselves into the air around me. Next, white light flared up from the card and the Duel Disk. Finally, the beast itself roared into existence, unfurling wings that shone like mirrors and raising its wedge-shaped head toward the sky. Its cry resounded like the beating of a gong. Simulated wind battered at my face, sending purple fabric flaring out around me. It was all I could do not to cover my face.

Blue-Eyes White Dragon's precise size had been left loose in the planning stages to accommodate for smaller dueling venues and the possibility of future fusion monsters. The model could stretch and shrink between animations for the sake of realism or dramatic impact. Here, contained in a large but somewhat cluttered room, the monster stood easily two metres tall. Its back was so heavily arched that its forelimbs almost brushed the ground, but it still had to bow its neck to avoid hitting the ceiling. Each claw was the size of my forearm. Its wings were longer than I was. It tilted its head to peer down at me with eyes bigger than my fists, and my throat closed off.

Beautiful. Simply, utterly, _purely_ beautiful. Elegance and destruction carved into a single whole. Looking up at it, I knew that nothing could ever mar this dragon. No one would ever be able to make it something it was not.

I moved without thinking. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. My feet had carried me to the dragon's armoured chest. I didn't so much hug it as I did collapse against it.

At least my work held up. There was enough air pressure in the hologram to keep me from falling through it. That would surely have ruined the illusion. I shut my eyes to keep any flickering polygons from catching my attention and focused very hard on keeping my breathing steady. 

This was just a series of lovingly painted lines. It couldn't protect me. Nothing could.

A confused rumble vibrated against my cheek. Was that noise programmed into it? I didn't think so. Regardless, it fit the moment, so these glitches could occasionally be beneficial to the overall product.

Another rumble, this one more pointed.

I sighed. The sound came out unfortunately choked. “Don't. Just... let me have this.”

Scales shifted against my skin. I tensed up, but the dragon made no attempt to remove itself from my... embrace, I supposed. Its tail scraped lightly across the ground as it swished, cat-like, somewhere about knee-height.

“Thank you,” I said after a moment. Everything felt calm for once. Then I made the mistake of opening my eyes.

The dragon's wings were curled tight around us, caging me in. It had curled its neck low so that its head was almost exactly level with mine. The world consisted of nothing but those piercing, inhuman blue eyes.

There was nothing I wanted more than to stay here forever. To pretend that this moment belonged to me. But I refused to lie to myself.

“You aren't mine.” If the words came out thick and wet, it was only because I was tired. “But I can't exactly return you to your previous owners. They'd have no use for you now.”

The dragon stared down at me, silent.

I kept rambling, like an idiot. “I can't believe that you'd want to return to the likes of them, anyway! The American was hip-deep in a trafficking scandal when I found him! It was child's play to make sure the right information got out to ruin him. The collector in Hong Kong was in debt to the mob. The German didn't even play Duel Monsters, he just got his kicks by hoarding things other people valued. He was well-acquainted with Gozaburo. Might have kept you just to spite me.” I had to stop for a moment. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. “I can't feel guilty for what I did to them. I won't.”

But at the same time, I couldn't honestly look at myself and say that I was any better.

My throat burned. I forced myself to look away from the monster and scrubbed furiously at my eyes. It didn't help.

 _How pathetic,_ a voice that sounded like Gozaburo's whispered into my ear. _The duel hasn't even started and you've already lost._

My throat worked, but no sound came out.

_Utterly pathetic._

Shut up. Stop talking.

_You know what happens to losers, right, Seto?_

Shut up, shut up, shut up-

Something bumped gently against my forehead. I stumbled back a step, jarred out of my thoughts. The Blue-Eyes let out a soft _kree_ sound and sat back on its haunches, looking pleased with itself. I stared up at it, one hand halfway to my face, while I tried and failed to process what had just happened.

Had-

Had it just _booped_ me?

“End simulation!” I barked, face burning for a brand new set of reasons. The hologram winked out obediently. If only my emotions could be switched off the same way.

Who the hell programmed my monsters to do that? Such a pointless gesture had no place in Duel Monsters! Unless Pegasus was planning to come out with some kind of friendship card just to spite me...

He _would_ do that, wouldn't he. 

Fine. I'd let the animation stay and refrain from drawing attention to it. But only because I'd hate to pile unnecessary work on everyone's plates.

I made a few cursory attempts at straightening the place up before I left. There wasn't much of a mess. It was a very basic excuse to avoid having to face the world until my cheeks stopped feeling warm, but I refused to care about that, either.

When I finally left, it was almost 3 AM. My body was going to hate me tomorrow. Then I noticed a very small, blanket-shrouded figure outside the workshop door, and all of my theoretical future regret found a new target.

“Mokuba, what are you doing up?”

He blinked sleepily at me. “Seto? I just... I wanted...”

Whatever he was trying to say, it was cut off by a yawn.

“Bed,” I said firmly. 

He stumbled to his feet, still wrapped in his blanket. His eyes lingered on my face and widened. “Seto, were you...”

“That doesn't concern you.” I put my hand on his shoulder, turned him safely around, and began steering him away from the door. He went, but not without trying to steal another look at me. Unfortunately for him, I was prepared. 

_Nice try, little brother._

Mokuba made one final attempt to turn around when we reached the hall leading to both our rooms. Gozaburo had made a habit of separating us whenever he could. That was one of the very first things we'd changed, long before Yugi Mutou had entered the picture. 

He dug in his toes at the edge of his door and craned his head over his shoulder. “Seto, are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” I told him. For once, it rang at least somewhat true. “Get some sleep.”

Gray-blue eyes narrowed slightly, searching my face for a lie. Unfortunately for him, he wouldn't find any. Microexpressions and body language are a complicated and misleading language unique to each person. And I... I had undergone a lot of changes recently. There was no guarantee he would recognize my new tells.

I pushed him inside and closed the door before I could think about that too hard. It wouldn't do him any good to be caught up in my problems. Not again.

I hadn't always been there for Mokuba. But this much, I could do.

* * *

_**I tried confornting him. He won't talk to me.** _

_**I think he was crying earlier** _

_**He won't even let me look at him** _

_shit_

_okay whatever you do do not panic_

_**Too late.** _

_**I don't know how to fix this** _

_**I thought things were going to be better from now on** _

_they will be_

_i'll make them_

_he won't get away from us tomorrow_

_**thanks, katsuya** _

_it's no biggie_

_mokie_

* * *

Even from within, it was difficult to put a finger on the moment Yugi, 17 year old gaming enthusiast, became 'Yugi', arbiter of the Shadow Games. The transition was at once sharp and blurred. One moment, it was just Yugi sitting in class, fidgeting, counting the seconds until the bell rang. The next, he began to diverge and run around the edges, the both of them listening to Jounouchi talk about how worried Mokuba was. As Jounouchi's tone got harsher and he began to pace, it became harder and harder for Yugi to think. Bitter anger and residual hate lapped at his insides. Old fear and fresh grudges mingled in his blood. Finally, 'Yugi' was separate enough to nudge him gently aside and settle into the driver's seat.

“You can stop repeating yourself, Jounouchi,” he said, the words ringing with quiet certainty. “We get the point.” 

Jounouchi eyed him strangely for a moment. “Yug?”

The boy who still considered himself to be Yugi Mutou inclined his head, a curiously regal gesture. “The question isn't 'will we do something about Kaiba?', but 'where is Kaiba?'”

At his other side, Anzu frowned. “Good question.”

It wasn't that none of them had seen him at school today. He'd just made it all but impossible for them to get him alone. To be fair, he hadn't exactly been singling any of them out – the entire school had found themselves held firmly at arm's length. Which wasn't exactly surprising, in Yugi's opinion. According to the memories of his gentler half, Kaiba had never been the social type. At the same time, Kaiba used to avoid others by smiling and saying empty words. Today, he'd been a sword of ice, cutting down conversations before they could begin with stony indifference and eyes so cold they burned. The change sat wrong with Yugi. He wished he knew why.

“Kaiba left the room about half an hour before class ended,” Yugi thought out loud. “He reached into his pocket before he stood up, and he said something to the teacher before he made his departure.”

Anzu's eyes sharpened. “So he was taking a call?”

Jounouchi scowled. “Why would he call someone inside the building? This place has shi–” He caught her stare and visibly reconsidered. “-really lousy reception, okay, stop glaring at me!”

“Language,” Honda said primly. “Anyway, not every place has awful reception.”

“Yeah? Name one.”

“The roof.”

Yugi's head snapped toward Honda. “Is that so? How fortuitous.” 

He'd been meaning to find a reason to go up there. The view would probably be lovely. And he missed the feel of wind on his face.

“Yug? Yug, can you stop smilin' like that? It's kinda weirdin' me out.”

Yugi covered his mouth so as not to offend Jounouchi's delicate sensibilities. Then he left his seat and headed for the roof. There was only half an hour left in this lunch period. If he was going to confront Kaiba, he needed to get on with it. The other Yugi had an unfortunate tendency to drag him back down when mundane emergencies - like being late for class - reared their heads.

He was faintly surprised to hear the sound of feet and screeching chairs in his wake. He'd assumed the others would prefer to be left out of this. After some thought, he decided not to say anything. It was their trial to face.

Someone had installed a new lock on the maintenance door leading to the roof. Yugi glared at it and drew on a thread of power. The lock hissed and clicked open, smoking faintly. A triumphant smirk tugged at Yugi's lips. He took the stairs two at a time.

Kaiba was waiting on the rooftop, open uniform jacket fluttering in the open air. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear while he spoke into it, the words coming out in a rapid-fire staccato. Whatever he was saying, he cut himself off the second Yugi arrived.

“I'll call you back,” he said stiffly, and turned toward the stairs. For a split-second, the sun turned his eyes into mirrors, and he was as bright and terrible as the dragons he'd stolen. Then the moment passed and shadows overtook his face once more. 

That wasn't a problem; the shadows suited Kaiba. They made the newfound pale light in his eyes stand out starker. Those eyes flicked around the roof with quick, economical movements, registering each person's position and moving on to the next. Yugi held himself very still as Kaiba's gaze returned to him. It was more difficult than he'd anticipated. Yes, there were definitely blades in those eyes.

More concerning, there was barely a trace of recognition in them. The only person they lingered on at all was Yugi himself.

Finally, Kaiba spoke in a clipped tone. “Can I help you?”

“That depends,” Yugi said, smiling faintly. “Do you know who I am?”

A harsh scoff. “Don't mock me, Yugi Mutou.”

“So you recognize me, at least. It's good to know you didn't completely fail at solving the puzzle of your heart.”

Kaiba bristled like a cornered cat. “How did _you_ find out?”

“Your brother is worried about you.”

He went terribly still. “If you've dragged Mokuba into this...”

Jounouchi chose then to speak up, because of course he did. It was the big brother in him. He couldn't let things lie. “You're the one who's dragged Mokuba into things.”

Yugi could see the moment Kaiba realized who was talking to him. The consternation in his eyes was difficult to interpret any other way. It should have been amusing. Still was, in a way. More concerning, however, was the implied truth that Kaiba really hadn't recognized Jounouchi until now. Yugi – one of them, anyway – had seen something worth saving in Kaiba's hollowed-out soul. He'd broken Kaiba to purge the twisted darkness and restore the whole. Now he found himself wondering how much of Kaiba had been rooted in that ugly pain and despair.

The Kaiba who stood before him, silent and calculating, drawing his secrets around him like armour, was an entirely different person from the Kaiba who'd used his pain as a weapon and smiled like he was dying. It was like they were built from different pieces entirely.

Was this really the work of a Punishment Game?

“You're the one he's been texting,” Kaiba said flatly. “How... unnecessary.”

“Mokuba isn't unnecessary!” Jounouchi shot back.

“That's not what he means,” Yugi said, holding up an arm to stop Jounouchi from doing something stupid. “Is it, Kaiba?”

“Don't put words in my mouth,” Kaiba spat. “Why are you here, Yugi?”

The sheer vitriol in that sentence banished any remaining amusement. Kaiba had hated Yugi before, but he'd never been so controlled about it. Kaiba's rage was a hot, tempestuous thing, burning out of control. This was so far from that it was unrecognizable. With a start, Yugi realized that Kaiba hadn't once looked away from him since that initial survey of the rooftop. “We're here to talk.”

“I hadn't realized we were on speaking terms.”

Jounouchi growled again and started forward. This time it was Honda who held him back. Yugi didn't glance sideways as Anzu moved up beside him, too busy holding Kaiba's gaze. If he broke eye contact, something might shatter beyond repair. 

“We aren't,” he said carefully. “But we could be.” He'd meant what he said while Kaiba was comatose. The Kaiba Yugi had seen in Death-T had the makings of a truly superb duelist, if only he could let go of his hurt. Despite everything he'd done, those three dragons had listened to him. If they truly viewed him unworthy of their power, they would have turned on him just as the one belonging to Grandpa had.

The offer was genuine. Somehow, that seemed to offend Kaiba more than anything else. “You can't be serious. You're trying to offer me friendship? It seems you're the one who's forgetting things.”

“Yugi, what the hell,” Anzu and Jounouchi said simultaneously at very different volumes.

Honda didn't say it, but his expression mirrored theirs.

Yugi exhaled loudly, still looking at Kaiba. “I don't know why you're surprised. I've been talking about this for months. That last duel with you... it could have been something other than what it was. You could have been something different than what you were.”

With each word, Kaiba drew back further. By the time Yugi was done, his back had hit the chain-link fence around the rim. It was almost a full head shorter than he was, but somehow, he still looked trapped. His face had completely closed off. “What do you want?” he snapped. “An apology?”

“That would be a nice starting point,” Anzu grumbled.

Yugi nodded. “Grandpa would appreciate that. You could come back with us, if you want that rematch.”

The noise that came out of Kaiba's throat couldn't be called a laugh. There were far too many teeth for that. “Really? _Really?_ Newsflash – some things can't be apologized for. All you can do is put up warning signs around the scars and ignore the stares. Your grandfather doesn't want me in his game shop, Yugi. He wants to spend the rest of his life pretending I don't exist. If you had any sense, you'd be the same.”

“People aren't as weak as you think, Kaiba,” Yugi assured him. 

Kaiba's expression remained static and closed-off, but something like confusion entered his eyes. “Are you equating the acknowledgment of pain with weakness?”

The boy who still thought of himself as Yugi Mutou stared back, nonplussed. Was that not what was happening here?

“It's not _weak_ to accept the consequences of your mistakes,” Kaiba said icily. “It's called _basic courtesy._ ”

Yugi crossed his arms. Without ornamentation, they were uncomfortably light. “Courtesy begins with apologizing for what you've done wrong.”

For the first time since he'd come back to school, the corners of Kaiba's mouth tilted upward. It wasn't a pretty sight. “Then let's trade. I'm sorry for what I did to you, your grandpa, and your little friends before and during what was, in retrospect, probably some kind of drug-induced psychotic episode. Attempted murder of minors, outright theft of your grandfather's important card, cheating – it went against everything I stand for. I'll never do it again. Your turn, Yugi.”

“Huh?”

“Do you think this is a one-way street?” Kaiba asked with a poisonous sweetness. “You stole six months of my life with whatever untested hallucinogen you slipped into my system. At minimum. Stealing your grandfather's Blue-Eyes the first time was all me. Everything else? Happened after you drugged me. The hallucinations, the phantom pain, the fixation on making you hurt... my actions are on me, but those symptoms? That was on you.” He laughed in true then, loud and mirthless, the sound ringing out across the rooftop. “Apologize. And then get that mix tested before you use it on anyone else who pisses you off.”

Yugi scowled, scrambling to follow the sudden swerve. What was Kaiba talking about? Was this about their first Shadow Game? But Kaiba had shrugged off the effects of that, becoming every bit as monstrous as the creatures that had devoured him in the Experience of Death, hadn't he? No matter what he'd said at the time, no one who'd truly suffered from a Punishment Game would be able to mastermind what had followed. “You think I drugged you?”

“I know you drugged me. And the side effects were nearly to die for.” 

Was he implying... “Death-T was not my fault!”

Silence. Yugi could feel his friends watching him, their eyes heavy on his skin, but he couldn't look away from Kaiba. Something was about to give. It set his teeth on edge.

Finally, Kaiba sighed. “So this is as far as your justice goes.” 

With quick, graceful movements, he pulled away from the fence and walked toward them. Jounouchi turned to keep him in view the entire time, but Kaiba made no move toward him. He made no move toward any of them. With Honda and Anzu, that could be expected, but Kaiba walked past Yugi without comment, too, dismissing him as thoroughly as everyone else. Only when he stood just outside the door did he speak again.

“I don't expect you to care about what happens to me. But if you ever make me a danger to my brother again, I will destroy you. Consider that a promise.”

The door closed. Kaiba's footsteps receded. And Yugi let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. “What are you planning, Kaiba?”

Anzu's hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up and frowned. Why did she look so upset? “Yugi? Yugi, was it true what he said?”

“About destroying me? Probably. Don't worry, he's clearly misinterpreted the situation. The fact that he's on the defensive rather than pre-emptively attacking us says good things about his current state-”

“Not that,” Anzu said tightly. “Those symptoms. Did you... do something to him?”

Ah. So that was what this was about. “Of course not. If the Experience of Death had left scars like that, he wouldn't have been able to set up Death-T in the first place. He's trying to make himself look more vulnerable than he is.”

Jounouchi coughed and scuffed his toe on the ground. “Uh, Yug? Gonna have to disagree with you there. That was not someone who was tryin' to look soft. He was tryin' to hurt you.”

Yugi frowned at him. “By lying? I told you, it's impossible. You saw him after he kidnapped Grandpa. He brushed his first Punishment Game off completely. That's why I had to Mind Crush him.” A brief pause. “Jounouchi, why are you looking at me like that?”

“What the hell,” Jounouchi muttered, still staring at Yugi like he'd suddenly transformed into a venomous snake. “Yug, Kaiba was off his rocker all the way through that mess. Pretty sure he was actively seein' things for most of it. Don't you remember how he kept grandstanding to a crowd that wasn't there?”

“So?” Yugi said defensively. “He's very dramatic.”

Honda cleared his throat. He was still holding onto to Jounouchi, but now he seemed to be doing it for more support. “Yugi. Could whatever you did result in, you know, hallucinations, phantom pain, and obsessive thought patterns?”

“Yes.” There was no point in sugar-coating it. “What I showed him was a detailed illusion of the world inhabited by Duel Monsters. He was trapped there for what may subjectively have been several years.”

“And... what happened to Kaiba in that world?” Honda croaked. 

Yugi shrugged. “I assume he was eaten. That's why I was so surprised when he returned – it's not often someone emerges from the Experience of Death with their sense of self intact.”

Now they were all looking at him like he'd suddenly bared fangs and begun slithering toward them menacingly. He would dismiss it, but somewhere in the back of his head, he could faintly feel the other Yugi doing the same thing.

“What?” he demanded. “What is it?”

Jounouchi and Honda looked at each other, pale-faced, and gave him identical weak smiles. Anzu was not so restrained.

“Then this whole thing really was your fault!” she yelled, visibly trembling with the effort of not hitting him. Yugi still found himself edging backward, just in case. “We nearly died, Yugi! How could you do something like that? Even Kaiba didn't deserve to be eaten alive by monsters! Nobody does!”

Each word hit Yugi like a physical blow. “Anzu, I-”

“Shut up! The Yugi I was friends with would never do something like that!”

All of a sudden, Yugi couldn't breathe. All he could do was watch as Anzu stared down at him, red with fury, then marched away. She looked straight ahead of her, shoulders tight with brittle fury. From behind, it made her look uncannily like Kaiba.

He was vaguely aware of Jounouchi and Honda inching toward him, asking him if he was alright, but he couldn't focus on them. Wouldn't focus, really. The edges of Yugi and 'Yugi' were beginning to blur again, and he sank down into the dark subconscious willingly.

Had he... lost a friend?

Why?

 _What did I do, Anzu?_ he thought as he slipped away. _What did I do wrong?_

Seconds later, Yugi opened his eyes with a gasp. Jounouchi and Honda crouched on either side of him, visibly relieved. He couldn't even make himself look at them. All he could do was curl up in a ball and struggle not to cry. “Other me, what have you done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You trampled on my love and laughed  
>  You clung on to a foolish love  
> The reason I became a witch  
> The reason why I’m cursing you (now)_  
> -NS Yoon-G, The Reason I Became A Witch


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things fall apart.

As soon as I was down the hall and past the smoking lock, the weight of what had just occurred crashed down on me. I'd finally found Yugi Mutou. I'd just turned my back on Yugi Mutou. And Mokuba had been texting Jounouchi – _Katsuya Jounouchi, how had I missed that_ – since before I'd woken up. 

That was too much. I couldn't engage with it right now. So I let my lip curl and thought about the ruined lock instead. What had those brats done, dumped acid on it and hoped for the best? Unbelievable. I was going to have to make sure it was replaced with something sturdier. Maybe Solid Vision could help out there. Hard-light holograms were good for more than just bringing monsters to life. 

Ha. 'Just.' As if I wasn't clinging pathetically to the memory of Blue-Eyes wrapping its wings around me the entire walk back to class. I took one look at the door, realized I was in no shape to be around people, and went past it. The bathroom was empty. I locked myself in with a master key and tried to keep my breathing under control.

It wasn't working. Why wasn't it working?

The mirror was too far away. I couldn't see myself. I moved toward it robotically, feeling divorced from my body. There I was: tall, pale, and sickly, shrouded in a uniform that made my stomach turn. I tore the jacket off with numb fingers and threw it over the sink. Then I crumpled in on myself and began to retch.

What had I said? What had I done? I'd accused him of – the drugs had been one of those things I was carefully not thinking about, not with Kaiba Corp in the firing line. The plan had been to ignore everything until I had my feet on stable ground, and then quietly pursue the matter, ideally through a patsy. Yugi Mutou was dangerous, but it was a circumstantial kind of danger. If I'd just left him alone, he was unlikely to actively pursue me.

Except he had. And I'd gotten cornered like a rat and screwed everything up. What a joke.

At least I'd confirmed one thing: I could recognize him. The electricity of his presence was unmistakable. The terror I'd felt in front of him was carved into my soul. 

Finally, I regained control of myself. I rinsed my mouth, washed my hands, and took several seconds to just breathe. Breathe, and go over everything that had just happened. The blond punk I'd been seeing around – that was Katsuya Jounouchi, made unrecognizable by the shift to 3D. The other two must have been Hiroto Honda and Anzu Mazaki. I couldn't remember running into either of them, but their reaction – or rather, lack of reaction – to hearing Yugi talk about my memory loss implied that it had happened. 

All right. Fine. I could live with that. I could not live having exposed my raw and bleeding wounds to the one who'd stuck his fingers in my scars and opened them up wide. Thank god he didn't know everything. If he'd known what had made me and still subjected me to that, then I – 

I – 

“Screw this,” I hissed and turned on my heel. Forget class, I was going home. There was no way I'd be able to concentrate like this. 

I couldn't even remember his face. The eyes were all that had stayed. For a moment, all I could see was red. Deep, dark crimson, like rubies. Like blood.

Had Yugi Mutou's eyes always been that colour?

Why couldn't I _remember?_

* * *

_mokie weve got trouble_

_**What is it?** _

_**Is everyone okay?** _

_were fine_

_**Is Seto fine?** _

_hes_

_fuck_

_he said something to yug and_

_anzu ran off_

_honda and i are trying to calm yug down_

_kaiba left_

_**Katsuya** _

_**Katsuya what happened?** _

_**What did he do?** _

_he looked right through all of us_

_the only person he recognized was yug_

_you still there?_

_been like 3 hours_

_mokie?_

* * *

Mokuba stared down at the phone in his hand, silent. His fingers were trembling. His head was full of cotton, so thick he couldn't even think properly. The various mechanical noises of his brother's office, which had been rumbling comfortingly a second ago, were now muted and strange. His teeth were beginning to hurt. And his fingers were trembling. For some reason, that was the worst part.

 _Seto doesn't recognize me,_ he thought. It looped in his head, over and over, a cold and empty truth that broke down everything he put in its path.

Seto hugged him when he woke up. But Seto didn't recognize him.

Seto always kept him close now. But Seto didn't recognize him.

Seto was... lighter, almost, when he let himself be. He didn't smile, exactly, but the severity of his frown softened until it was barely visible. He looked younger when that happened. And usually, it happened because he was looking at Mokuba.

But Seto didn't recognize him. So none of that mattered. Because the Kaiba brothers were, if nothing else, very good actors.

When Mokuba was little, he overheard a strange conversation between their father – no, Seto never considered Gozaburo a parent, but he was the only father Mokuba could remember – and someone speaking through a computer. The exact wording has faded over the years, but the topic stayed. They'd been talking about Seto's inventions, his intelligence, his brain. Then that person, whoever they were, had asked how long that brain would belong to Seto.

It was a stupid question, that's why it stuck with Mokuba so long. A single stupid question in a rigid world of forced drills and harsh studying, being dragged into tax fraud and dropped into the business arena. He used to ponder it when he spaced out during tutoring, careful to keep his expression serious and his eyes focused. What was it even supposed to mean?

He used to worry that their father was going to try and copyright Seto's mind somehow, make sure all the ideas his brilliant older came up with belonged to KaibaCorp so that Seto could never, ever leave. It seemed like the worst thing imaginable back then. Now Mokuba wants to laugh at his stupid younger self. Never assume you've found the worst thing out there. There's always something so much worse waiting in the wings.

It was halfway through the day. Seto probably wouldn't be back for hours. Mokuba had the house to himself. Saruwatari was around somewhere, and so were Seto's assistants – the few he trusted, anyway – but that was it. There was no one around to see Mokuba cry for the brother he remembered. The one with the strained grin and the feverish eyes, who'd held Mokuba for hours the day their father jumped out a window, who'd always put himself between Mokuba and the world. The one who'd disappeared six months ago. The one who was probably never, ever coming back.

 _Seto doesn't recognize me,_ Mokuba thought, and broke.

* * *

“You sure you're okay, Yug?”

Yugi wasn't okay, thanks for asking. He smiled anyway, wide as he could, never mind the soreness of his throat and the redness of his eyes. He hadn't even been crying. He didn't know why this was happening to him. “I'm fine, Jounouchi.”

Jounouchi didn't look convinced. “You sure? You're lookin' kinda shaky.”

“I'm sure. I'm just...” Surprised. Except not really. Yugi had known, hadn't he? That the other self he could feel behind his eyes, the presence that took over during his missing time, was doing terrible things to people. After a while, he'd even known who he was targeting during those episodes. It wasn't that hard to keep an eye out for a hall monitor bathing in leaves and garbage, articles about a director who'd gone mad and blind in the same night, news coverage of an escaped criminal who'd somehow set himself on fire.

Yeah. He'd known. He'd just been too scared to venture down that path. Or maybe... maybe he just hadn't cared.

Above him, Jounouchi sighed. He looked... normal. Scruffy, a bit bruised, smelling just a bit too much of sweat and aftershave. Business as usual. Even after everything they'd learned today, he'd rebounded in seconds. Honda was still pale, Yugi felt like he was going to fall apart, and Anzu... had run away from them. From him. Yugi had always envied Jounouchi, but he'd never wanted that unflappable faith in his own two hands quite so much.

“Did you know?” Honda asked quietly.

Yugi shook his head. “I could have looked harder. But I didn't. I thought... there was no point in looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

After all, hadn't he benefited from everything that happened? Hadn't it been his wishes that were being violently granted? For a moment, he'd wanted Kaiba dead. And now...

No. Whatever else that talk on the rooftop had revealed, it had confirmed one thing. Seto Kaiba was still alive, still present, still sane. He was just a bit different, that was all. Different was fine. Yugi could accept a Kaiba with eyes like ice and a tongue like knives. He'd take anything, as long as it meant he hadn't murdered a classmate for the crime of stealing a card. 

Blue-Eyes White Dragon was an important card. His grandpa's soul resided in it. But there was no way card games were worth peoples' lives.

As soon as that thought crossed his mind, Yugi felt something shift in the back of his head. Like a thick blanket had been pressing down on him and had now shifted. Like an animal curling tightly into itself, away from him.

“All right,” Honda said, nodding. “Okay. So there's just... two of you?”

“Yeah,” Yugi said, ignoring the presence for a moment. He'd think about it later – he'd learned his lesson, promise – but right now he just couldn't. Not here on the rootftop where his first and oldest friend had left him. Not now. “I guess so.”

“Huh.” Jounouchi cocked his head to the side, then shrugged. “Well, it's whatever.”

Honda groaned. “Really, Jounouchi?”

“It's not like there's anything we can do about it! Wait, can we do anything about it?”

“I don't think so,” Yugi said apologetically. “It's news to me too. I didn't really realize we were... separate, until now.”

“What did it?” Honda asked, eyes narrowing.

Yugi swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I never would've said something like that to Kaiba. I don't... I agree with what the other me was trying to do, but he went about it all wrong. You can't call people weak for hurting. That kind of pain... it isn't something you can just muscle through, you know? If you try, you'll just end up breaking yourself even further. I think... I think that's what happened to Kaiba.”

They both stared at him for several seconds. Then Honda sighed and Jounouchi made a face.

“You really wanna be friends with that guy?” Jounouchi asked plaintively.

A helpless little laugh burst out of Yugi's throat. “No way! Not until Grandpa gets his apology. But I do want to duel Kaiba – a proper duel, you know? With nothing on the line except fun.” The laughter faded. “I wasn't the one dueling him last time, but I remember enough. He's good. The way he played – it was almost hypnotizing. But he wasn't happy.”

“Can't say I get the appeal,” Jounouchi grumbled. “I could pick up Duel Monsters. You could duel me.”

“Oh, would you?” Yugi shot to his feet, suddenly energetic. “Let's go down right now! I brought some of my spare decks and a bunch of extra booster packs. We can build you a deck right now!”

“Wha – hey! Don't drag me down the stairs! We're gonna trip!”

“Children,” Honda grumbled, but he was smiling again. Yugi was gonna chalk that one up as a win.

“You guys should come over tonight!” he chattered with optimism that was only partly-forced. “My grandpa's the real card shark in the family, he'll totally have some advice for you!”

Jounouchi grimaced. “I was just gonna stuff my deck with strong monsters.”

“I don't even play and I've got some advice for you,” Honda said as they thundered downstairs together. “Don't. That's how you lose.”

“You should learn too, Honda!”

“No way, Yugi, I've already got a hobby.”

Yugi sniffed. “Biking can't be that much fun.”

“It really is,” Honda assured him.

Yugi didn't believe him. But then, Yugi didn't believe a lot of things. Most of all, he couldn't believe that they hadn't left him. When Anzu had stormed away, he'd thought for sure that he'd lost everything. This was it. His monkey's paw had come to collect. But no.

He wondered how much longer his reprieve would last.

* * *

Having a space to call your own is a powerful thing. As soon as the door closed behind me, I felt better. School seemed very far away all of a sudden, Yugi Mutou and his friends like distant strangers. It wasn't true, of course. I clung grimly to that reality. It was a mistake to believe that nothing which happened back there could hurt me. There was always something. Safety did not exist.

No, that was going too far. Safety existed in one shape and one shape only. But dragons couldn't hold off the world indefinitely. Still, as I headed upstairs, I couldn't quite shake the impression of wings wrapped around me.

Really, how childish. But it made me relax a bit as I approached Mokuba's room. He hadn't been downstairs and he hadn't come running when I arrived, so he had to be up there. Besides, I could hear him talking in there. The walls weren't quite soundproofed, but they did muffle things. I couldn't hear what he was saying, just that he was loud and excited. It had been a long time since he felt secure enough to be enthusiastic in this house. Maybe that was a sign we should get out of this place. Or even just remodel. The image of a wrecking ball swinging directly into the side of that man's prized house was perfect. I wasn't quite smiling when I opened the door, but it was close.

“Mokuba?”

The room was empty. 

Why was the room empty? I could still hear his voice. A quick scan showed me the problem: he'd left his phone behind, and it was stuck on some kind of recording program. The volume was incredibly high, but it had been abandoned on the bed speaker-side down. Other than that, the room was empty. Mokuba wasn't here.

I crossed the room slowly, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. That made it worse. When I finally picked the phone up and turned the volume down to reasonable levels, it was like I'd never left the rooftop.

The phone had reached the end of its recording. With cold, still fingers, I set it to replay.

“You lied to me,” Mokuba's voice said. My heart stuttered in my chest. He sounded like he'd been crying. “I thought – I thought you were okay. I thought you were still my brother. I thought...” A choked sob. “I thought we could go back to how things used to be. But you aren't him anymore, are you? And you didn't even tell me.”

My thoughts collided, overlapping endlessly until none of them functioned. On a computer, it's called a blue screen of death. It's not so obvious on a human. Especially one as practiced in shutting down prettily. 

There was no need to draw attention to my own failures. Even when I couldn't do anything but listen and breathe as my world came crashing down around me.

“Your memories aren't right,” Mokuba continued. “It's like – you either remember things too vividly or not at all. You don't have nightmares anymore. You don't obsess over things like you used to, and when you do, it's all useful things. Productive ones. Like all that matters is moving forward.” A thick noise, undecipherable. It could've been another sob. It could've just been a difficult breath. It was impossible to say. “I thought maybe you'd just had some kind of scare. You almost died. That would shake anyone, right? Even Seto Kaiba. But you don't recognize anyone.” That beloved voice turned bitter. “You don't recognize me.”

How had he found out? How had I not realized he suspected?

If I'd known he was figuring things out, I would've –

Would've what? Told him? Ha. I could hardly even face the facts myself. Admitting to myself that I probably had lingering brain damage... it was the one of hardest things I'd ever done. I still couldn't say it out loud. 

“If you were really my brother, you would've said something!” Mokuba yelled. I tightened my grip on the phone, but didn't move it away. I couldn't. Not when I deserved this. “I'm leaving! Whoever you are, don't look for me! I don't need you! I'm gonna be just fine without you!” And then, the final blow to the shattered remains of my heart. “But don't worry, I'll take Saruwatari with me. Isn't it so nice to have people you trust around when you're upset?”

I hadn't even begun to process that when I noticed something off with the recording. A quiet sound. Footsteps approaching. Mokuba appeared to notice the noise at the same time I did.

“Huh?” he asked, suddenly confused. “Saruwatari, what are you–”

His voice cut off into a panicked scream, and then went soft and muffled. Saruwatari's voice took over. “Quit struggling. It'll be worse if you fight.” He cleared his throat and did – something – that made Mokuba stop trying to yell. “Seto Kaiba, your younger brother is now in the custody of Pegasus J. Crawford. If you want to see him again, come to Duelist Kingdom tomorrow. Alone.”

A car door slammed and the recording ended. I stared down at it, a hollowed-out ice sculpture. Empty. Alone. I couldn't focus on anything Mokuba had said, so I set that aside and encrypted it. Then I began breaking down the information carried through the recording itself. It hadn't been recorded here – there was faint traffic in the background for most of it, and no sign of a car inside the house. That meant Mokuba had been somewhere he felt safe for most of it. Somewhere close to a fairly busy road. He'd only realized something was wrong when Saruwatari approached. 

That gave me a fairly narrow list of locations to work through, which meant I could now start tearing into everything Pegasus might want from my little brother. From KaibaCorp. From me. The thunder of my heart could almost be mistaken for the furious screaming of some great beast.

He'd taken my brother. I was going to burn his kingdom down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It's a long road out to recovery from here  
>  A long way back to the light  
> A long road out to recovery from here  
> A long way to makin' it right_  
> -Frank Turner, Recovery


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seto has a completely reasonable reaction.

The first thing I did was make some calls. This wasn’t a cartoon, after all. If I was going to uproot myself and fly to Pegasus’ private island, I needed to make arrangements beforehand. Nothing too major. Just a bit of insurance in the event that I couldn’t wrap this up in the next two days. It was Monday now. I set things to go down on Thursday morning. That should be plenty of time to deal with this.

Isono’s concern radiated through the airwaves, but he did as he was told. So did PR, R&D, and everyone else I reached out to. They’d all seen this coming. Industrial Illusions and Kaiba Corp were about to go head to head. Whoever was left standing would be the winner. This kind of underhanded strategy might blow an innocent teenager’s mind, but to me and mine, it was only routine. I suspected that Yugi Mutou would feel similarly, even as he judged me for wading so willingly into such filth.

Ha. Laughable. He could judge me after he took a good, hard look at himself and not a moment before. In other words, never. That unwanted reunion on the rooftop had been good for one thing, at least: it reminded me that underneath the gentle, soft-spoken mask, Yugi Mutou was as jagged and broken as I was. He just happened to be quieter about it. 

A boy like that would never willingly go over his past actions and wonder if the consequences had been his fault. I would know. I’d been stuck in that state for years.

Things were different now. They had to be.

The second thing I did was gather my things. Truthfully, I started packing while I was still on the phone. It had been weeks since I woke. I wasn’t in top condition, exactly, but I’d recovered enough for this. As long as I didn’t do too much hand-to-hand combat or climbing up sheer cliffs, I’d be fine. I picked up a satellite phone, the Duel Disk prototypes, my emergency kit, Mokuba’s emergency kit, and a few other things that might come in handy will I was setting things up with Isono. I did not take the floral trenchcoat I’d bought on a whim, but I was sorely tempted. 

Only after I’d hung up did I approach the nightstand. My deck still sat there, covered in a thin film of dust.

How long had it been since I touched it?

“Truly foolish,” I murmured. “To let something as small as a six-month coma get between me and my cards.”

I hadn’t even been updating my deck configuration. Too busy throwing myself into Kaiba Corp’s resurrection. Trying to pretend everything was okay. That I had never felt a monster’s teeth sink deep into my flesh. Well, I was long past the point of pretending. I reached out and picked up the deck.

Here were my dragons. Here were their servants. Here were the artifacts they hoarded. Here were those who bowed before their strength, but would surely stab them in the back if the chance arose. As I shuffled through the deck, I couldn’t shake the impression that something was missing. An image appeared in my mind: a white dragon with three heads.

“Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon? Is now the time to unveil you?”

Something inside me screamed yes. I remained exactly where I was for a few more seconds, just to prove I could, before I stowed my deck safely into my pocket and turned on my heel. It would take for the helicopter to be readied, anyway. I might as well be productive with it.

R&D was happy to see me again. I wished it was under better circumstances. Still, if anyone was going to put up with my chilly silence and uncertain temper, it would be a bunch of nerds having the time of their lives using military-grade hologram tech to make 3D monsters. I let their chatter flow over me while I finally finished rearranging the cards to my satisfaction. And then, just as I was leaving, another image washed over me: Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, rotting. A god brought low. The skeleton of a triumph. 

Why would anyone fuse Mammoth Graveyard with my dragon? Who would think of such a thing? That viscerally horrifying tactic was only a drawing. A hallucination of a drawing. Even so, my stomach turned over. I turned back. When I left the research wing, it was with one final card tucked away in my deck. If all went well, I wouldn’t need it, but the presence of De-Fusion eased my raw nerves.

The third I did – the fourth, if you counted waiting as its own separate thing – was collect my research. I went over all my files on Pegasus’ recent attempts to destroy me. Jotted down theories of what he was truly after. Tested the Duel Disk to ensure it was in working order. Went over the footage on countless security cameras to make sure Mokuba really had been taken and he really was on Duelist Kingdom. And then, because I’d run out of ways to delay it, I began to work my way through the phone numbers of Yugi Mutou and his friends.

I would understand if they didn’t pick up. I wouldn’t like it, but I would understand. No matter what Mokuba meant to them, I’d never been their friend. More importantly, I’d just declared my intention to disappear from their lives. Answering my calls would be incredibly hypocritical of them.

Even so, a part of me I’d thought was dead hoped for someone – anyone – to pick up, just so I didn’t have to do this alone.

* * *

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was going to be a happy evening. A few short hours Katsuya could spend with Yugi, Honda, and Yugi’s grandpa, pouring over cards and pretending he didn’t get as much as he actually did. And for a while, that was exactly how it had gone. He’d even stopped thinking about the empty space where Anzu should’ve been sitting, making snippy comments and effortlessly outclassing everyone but Yugi. Her absence was definitely weighing on Yugi, but as long as he was laughing and correcting Katsuya’s deck composition, it was fine.

Then Yugi’s grandpa had come in with a package and everything went to hell.

Katsuya blinked rapidly. His eyes felt painfully dry. Like he’d left them open for too long. Didn’t matter, Yugi was screaming. “Yug? Yug, what’s wrong?”

Yugi didn’t answer. He just kept pounding his tiny fists against the TV screen, crying his grandpa’s name. Honda was blinking too, but he and Katsuya exchanged a look and then darted in opposite directions: Katsuya toward Yugi, Honda towards the old man. 

“Hey, hey, breathe with me,” Katsuya said, trying to channel soothing. He probably missed it by a mile. 

Yugi let out a shuddering sob. “Grandpa – he’s–”

“It’s all right. Just breathe.”

“It’s not,” Yugi rasped. Violet eyes stared up at Katsuya through his blond fringe. “Grandpa… he’s gone.”

Katsuya frowned. “What’re you talkin’ about? He’s right over there, isn’t he?”

“No!” Another sob. “That man – Pegasus stole his soul!”

Well, shit. Katsuya’s entire body shivered. He glanced over his shoulder at Honda, hoping to god that Yugi was wrong. Honda had rolled Yugi’s grandpa so that he was lying on his back and seemed to be checking his pulse. “Honda?”

“He’s alive,” Honda said grimly. “But he’s not waking up.”

Yugi burst out in a fresh storm of tears. Katsuya bundled him closer and turned them both away from the TV just in time for the phone to start ringing. Really? Of all the times for some asshole to ring them. “Okay. Honda, go call the hospital. Yugi, sit with me. We’re gonna figure out what happened.” Assuming Yugi didn’t have any spooky magic plans. “You got any spooky magic plans?”

“No,” Yugi sniffled. “I don’t – this wasn’t me!”

“Didn’t say it was you, man. Just keep breathing.” Katsuya just kept rubbing little circles into Yugi’s shoulders and waited for him to calm down. The phone clicked as Honda picked up, then immediately hung up again. “Really? You’re not even gonna answer?”

“We don’t have time to mess around with telemarketers,” Honda said, and began to dial.

Fair enough. Katsuya shrugged and went back to comforting Yugi. This close, it really was hard to overlook how tiny his friend was. Little. Small. Breakable. Add in the soft, high-pitched voice still fighting to stifle sobs and it was all terribly nostalgic. 

It had been a while since he’d heard from Shizuka – no, she was calling herself Serenity now, wasn’t she? An English name for an American girl. He wondered how his little sister was doing out there alone.

* * *

“Hello, Mazaki residence. Who is–”

“Mokuba’s been kidnapped.”

“…what?”

“I said, Mokuba’s been kidnapped.”

“Is – is this Kaiba? Why are you calling me? You should be calling…”

“The police? Please, Mazaki. If that was an option, I would’ve done so already.”

“Okay. Okay. Who took him?”

“Pegasus J. Crawford of Industrial Illusions.”

“The man who created Duel Monsters? What the hell, why does he need to go around kidnapping preteens – it’s because of you, isn’t it. You just woke up, you started doing things again, and Mokuba’s your weakness.”

“‘Doing things?’”

“Look, all I know is you’ve been on TV a lot. I have a life, okay? I just… oh my god, Mokuba was texting Jounouchi earlier. He said something about confronting you.”

“So that’s why...”

“Kaiba, what happened?”

“I received a message from Crawford which contained a call from Mokuba. During that call, Mokuba attempted to confront me on… the same subject that you lot did earlier today. He claimed he was running away, but was interrupted before he could finish. He is currently being held on Crawford’s private island, Duelist Kingdom.”

“So you thought he was coming to stay with us? That would make a lot of sense. He and Jounouchi have gotten pretty close. Yugi, too.”

“Bonding over my absence, no doubt.”

“Kaiba?”

“Mazaki, I called to keep you updated on the situation and inform you of Mokuba’s circumstances. If all goes well, he will be returned by Monday, and none of this will matter. If not… regardless of how much you hate me, be kind to him. Yes, I am aware that I’m the last person who should be telling you how to treat him. Right now, I do not care. If he comes back from Duelist Kingdom alone, take care of him.”

“He won’t be alone. You’re going to the island to pick him up, aren’t you? I’m coming, too.”

“…what?”

“Of course I’m going! Mokuba’s my friend. It’s my solemn duty to make sure he’s all right. If you try and stop me, I’ll just stow away somewhere and make my way over that way.”

“Mazaki, I literally tried to kill you half a year ago.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m still processing that. But Mokuba’s a good kid, and nobody deserves to go through this. Yugi would… no, it doesn’t matter what Yugi would do. I won’t let this happen without trying to help.”

“…get yourself and your deck ready. You have fifteen minutes.”

“I’m a competitive dancer, I can be ready now.” 

“Really.” 

“Really. Got my go-bag, got my deck, I’m all set.”

“In that case, I’ll be over momentarily. Stay inside until prompted.”

“Huh? What do you – holy shit! Is that a helicopter?”

* * *

I didn’t actually intend to bring Anzu Mazaki with me. I’d called her last for a reason – she wasn’t a duelist, and she had the least to do with Mokuba and I. No one else had picked up, so odds were good that she’d either ignore me or laugh. 

She didn’t do either. Instead, she shouldered her way into my rescue plans without a single iota of doubt. Relief was an alien thing.

Even so, I still wouldn’t have taken her if I hadn’t suddenly thought of Blue-Eyes White Dragon. As I opened my mouth to shoot her down, I could feel it. The shadow of wings looming over me. A giant head hovering a few inches above my shoulder. Bright blue eyes staring into mine. 

There was nothing there, of course – no holograms, no cardboard, not even an action figure for me to mistake. The helicopter cabin was bare. Even so, I felt an irrational certainty that it was in there with me, watching me. Waiting for her.

Why would the dragon want me to bring Mazaki to Duelist Kingdom? 

As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I rolled my eyes. A card couldn’t want things. Whatever else my brain had decided to associate it with, the Blue-Eyes was ultimately just that: a card. But now that I was on this train of thought, it might be… useful… to have her along. She hadn’t been lying when she said she considered Mokuba a friend. More eyes looking for him could only be beneficial. I’d seen enough of her to know that she, like the rest of that little group, would go through fire for anyone she cared about. Whatever else happened on the island, she would get my brother out alive. That was all I could ask.

Besides, if I turned her down, I had a feeling she’d find a way to get onto that island anyway.

Whatever. At least she was being serious when she said she was ready to go. The utterly floored expression on the girl’s face as she left the house and ran toward the helicopter was pretty funny. It almost made up for my inability to actually recognize her. The way she walked was familiar, at least. Then she opened her mouth and something inside me relaxed. 

“Oh my god,” she said again, heaving herself into the back with a dancer’s grace. “How did you even land this in my yard?”

Yes, that was definitely Anzu Mazaki.

“It’s not that difficult.” I directed her to sit down and buckle herself in before I got us up in the air again. “Is that all?”

She hefted her bag and smiled. “Yep, this is everything!”

I sighed. “Do you want me to call anyone?”

“Nah, don’t bother. I’m living here alone for now. My folks are working in another city, but I wanted to come back to Domino for school. Better studios here.”

No mention of her friends. I eyed her bright, brittle smile and decided not to press her. If they’d fought, it wasn’t relevant to my goals. I wasn’t working against Yugi Mutou, after all. The only one in my sights now was Pegasus. 

“Hang on,” I told her. “I’m bringing us up.”

She squeaked a bit as we rose, but only a bit, and she got the hang of the shaking quickly. That was already better than most of the people I’d been forced to fly with. Not including Mokuba, of course, even with his irritating habit of putting his hands all over the windows. No, she minded her own business, kept her hands in her own space, and did nothing more irritating than look out the windows. I appreciated that.

“Do you have a license for this?” she asked several minutes into the flight.

“Do you really want to know?”

Mazaki made a face and leaned back in her seat. “You know what? Never mind. Let it remain a mystery.”

I smiled briefly. Then I remembered where Mokuba was and went back to grimly focusing on our flight plan. It shouldn’t be more than a few hours now.

_Duelist Kingdom, here I come._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, let's get this show on the road.
> 
> _I would kill to be with you  
>  We can make it thunder  
> I would kill to be with you  
> We will make it through_  
> -Gunship, Revel In Your Time


End file.
